A soon-to-open women's refuge will get a massive boost thanks to a recent fundraising event.
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Dig Deep for the Orchard, a dinner held on International Women's Day, raised $12,000 to help make the refuge comfortable for the women and children who will stay there.
The money will go towards buying essential home items so families staying at the Orchard Dubbo will be able to bring everything with them when they move out into other accommodation.
"The money raised will go towards purchasing furnishings, linen, and everything that is needed to make a house a home for one of the four self-contained units we are building," Rochelle Monaghan, engagement and volunteer coordinator at Housing Plus, said.
"Thanks to the incredible generosity of local businesses and the Dubbo community, we successfully raised an astounding $12,000 towards this cause!'
The inaugural fundraising event was held at the Taronga Western Plains Zoo and Housing Plus was joined by 70 guests from the local Dubbo community.
The event was supported by sponsors including the Impax Group, Squadron Energy, Macquarie Credit Union and Devil's Hollow Brewery.
"It was wonderful to see the Orchard Dubbo has so much support from the community," Ms Monaghan said.
"In the spirit of inspiring inclusion, we were moved by the impassioned speeches of remarkable women like Rebecca Bohun, Michelle Hunt, and Gargi Ganguly, who shared their personal journeys, their passion for helping others and for ensuring women's voices are heard.
"Adding to the richness of the evening, we were honoured to have the Oriscon Dubbo Performers share their culture with us through dance."
Construction on the Orchard Dubbo is now complete and Housing Plus expects it will be open in mid 2024.
It follows the success of the Orchard in Orange, which opened in November 2020 and has already welcomed hundreds of women and children.
Housing Plus CEO Justin Cantelo said it was one of the first facilities to be built on a core and cluster model which is now being adopted across Australia.
Units in the Orchard are the same size as a normal apartment and each have their own bathroom, kitchen and laundry. The units are all built around an administration space with on-site support for women and children.
"[In] the traditional refuge model you have bedrooms that the women and children have as their only private space and then there's a communal kitchen and bathroom and so on, sometimes they'll have their own bathroom but often it's a shared bathroom," he said.
"That has for a long time been seen as not fit for purpose and this model you have self-contained units so the women and children have the privacy of their own unit that supplies everything."
