NEW
Meet the Thrive team!
Jon Pitman
The Chair
Jon is originally from the small town of Goomalling in WA. Together with his wife Caz, have lived in Corryong for 21 years now and have three sons born here .He worked for 30 years as a self employed carpenter and currently works for Snowy Hydro running the civil maintenance team. During his time in Corryong Jon has been involved with local emergency services, schools and community groups to "give back" to the community. In May 2021 Jon and Caz lost their middle son, Joe, to suicide after a long battle with anxiety and depression; as you can imagine, this was devastating.
After Joe's passing, Jon was invited to be part of the "suicide postvention committee" run by Corryong Health to help deal with the immediate issues the community was facing after having lost six young men, four to suicide, one to a tragic accident and another to cancer, all within two years.
A core group of members, including Jon, felt the community needed to do more on an ongoing basis - this is how 'Thrive' was formed in January of 2022.
Jon would like to see "Thrive" attract funding to be able to facilitate the development of our community, be able to sponsor participants in a wide rage of programs designed to promote personal growth and resilience across all age groups, as well as promote activities that "Bring our community together".
Ben Kurnof
The Treasurer
Ben was born and bred in the Upper Murray on a dairy farm in Cudgewa. Moved away after finishing school and completing a Mech fitter apprenticeship with Snowy Hydro. He worked and travelled all over Australia with his high school sweetheart for twenty years or so before deciding to move back to the Upper Murray to raise their own kids in the same great place and way that they were.
Ben doesn't know if he necessarily 'joined' Thrive. There were a great number of people like Ben who couldn't just stand by, seeing what was happening and doing nothing about it, that joined a suicide postvention group which progressed into a prevention group, that has now progressed to Thrive! Ben wants to make a difference through Thrive, not just to suicide stats, but to community engagement, health and wellbeing in general.
He would like to see the Thrive group re-unite and re-invigorate our community. All ages, all genders coming together, taking ownership of our community, working together to build a wonderful place for us all to live. I see this happening by bringing events, opportunity, infrastructure, education and a sense of belonging to all by empowering the community to help us to help you create what you want and need.
Graeme van Brummelen
Secretary
Graeme moved to the Upper Murray in 2017 to take on the pastors role at Corryong Baptist Church. Graeme has lived experiemce to go with his ministry credentials as he looks to bring awareness and action with regard to Suicide Prevention.
Carol Allen
First and Foremost Carol is the Associate Pastor of Ambassadors of Jesus Christian Assemblies (AOJCA), a Victoria Police Chaplain, since recently a Corryong Health Volunteer Chaplain, Justice of the Peace (JP), an Independent Third Person (ITP) with the Office of Public Advocate (OPA) & also the manager of Corryong Food Share Services.
she has 2 adult Children & 3 Adult Grandchildren (all living in different States of Australia & One in America)
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Carol joined Thrive because she cares about our Community’s welfare (particularly the younger generation) & has a deep passion for seeing people both young, and old, live their life to full potential, knowing they are on planet earth for a reason!