Introducing Jacinda Erich - Guest Blogger!

You know how sometimes you cross paths with someone and you know you were destined to meet? This is how it was when I met Jacinda. Jacinda and I live in the same community and had never met despite our worlds crossing over in many extraordinary ways. We knew many of the same people, we had worked at the same local government just months apart, we shared interests and passions.

I never met her gorgeous boy Harper, but I so wish I had, he was my kind of people. I had, however, met Jacinda's daughter, Kiah, many years before my path crossed with hers and Kiah had a significant impact on my young family. My son Austin, 4 years old at the time loved Kiah who was a young barista and waitress at our local cafe. She made a killer coffee and was so lovely and friendly. We had lots in common, she was a traveller, a nature lover and was passionate about wholesome local, seasonal food. She was so delightful and generous with our son. He talked about her often, he would ask to go for a baby chino almost daily, just to see her and when he walked in the cafe, he would chit chat away to her with full delight. 

When we told Austin that he was going to be a big brother he immediately declared that she would be a girl and that she would be named Kiah, he was so certain of this that we, the parents, almost had no choice at all...... and so it came to be that my daughter Kiah Wren was named after Jacinda's beautiful daughter, Kiah Sunshine.  

Jacinda and I met around 3 years after this online.  It was the start of the pandemic and people had gone mad hoarding toilet paper. Jacinda had put the call out on a local Facebook page needing toilet paper as the shop shelves were bare (remember all that crazy!) I had answered the plight of this delightful stranger and we exchanged messages, she gave me her address and I dropped off a pink ribbon bound stack of toilet paper on her front porch. In such strange times, I guess the gesture had warmed her heart, because we struck up a bit of a messenger chat and soon realised that the threads of life had wrapped themselves around us long before that moment.

For two people who are passionate about community it's an extraordinary story of the community at play even when you don't yet realise it.

Jacinda is an extraordinary human and a wonderful writer and so it is with great enthusiasm and immense gratitude that I hand over The Forever Agenda blog to her for the coming 5 weeks. Starting next Monday Jacinda will share a series of weekly pieces with us, where she will explore topics around community and volunteering.

Here is a bit more about our awesome guest blogger, Jacinda.

Jacinda Erich is passionate about community and all that community brings to each and every one of us, the day-to-day interactions and smiles on the street to the pitching in to help a family in need. A thriving community provides a sense of belonging that when all else feels beyond us, there is a community.

Jacinda spent her childhood in Emerald, which in the 70’s was far from suburbia but not quite country either. It was a dream childhood spent traipsing all over town playing in muddy creeks and going on endless adventures. A childhood that cemented Jacinda’s passion for community, and for community development. Jacinda has now lived most of her life in the beautiful Dandenong Ranges where her love and affection only grows stronger for the protection of the land, the waterways and its wildlife. 

After studying a degree in disability, it was working with community to strengthen its capacity to be more inclusive of people with disability that really fuelled Jacinda’s passion for the power of community. Jacinda has worked in local government and the not-for-profit sector in a multitude of roles including volunteer coordination, advocacy, community development, health promotion and case management which in combination provide a unique lens to all that she applies herself to.

Jacinda is now writing her memoir and through this process has discovered a love of writing and looks forward to sharing her writing with you.