Plan for Orphan Building

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CARE Leavers advocate Leonie Sheedy wants Geelong’s original orphanage building to house an Australian orphanage museum and hopes its owners will share the dream.

The founder of Care Leavers Australia Network will ask Moltoni Corporation to donate use of the McCurdy Rd building, which is linked to the company’s Fyansford Green development.

“We need greater awareness of the number of orphanages that were in Geelong and we want the public to get behind the push for a national museum, it must be in Geelong,” Mrs Sheedy said.

“We need to convince Rob Moltoni, I’m actually going to ask would he donate it o the nation.

“It would be a wonderful gesture.”

Geelong was home to more orphanages than any Australian city outside a capital.

The McCurdy Rd building was formerly Glastonbury orphanage. It has long served as a museum curated by Geelong cement industry retirees.

Mrs Sheedy stressed Care Leavers respected its importance as a cement museum but hoped there might be room to share.

Motloni Corporation public relations manager Yogi Stefanovski said future use of the building remained uncertain as Fyansford green took shape.

“We have not determined its final use as part of the bigger Fyansford Green master plan,” she said.

“It is currently being occupied by the cement retirees, who have done a wonderful job for many years.”

Mrs Sheedy, not of Sydney, spent 13 formative years in Geelong’s St Catherine’s Orphanage.