Richmond Football Club and Parklea, together with the Cardinia Shire Council, today announced the establishment of a community development partnership.

The partnership will use football to strengthen the communities based in Cardinia Shire, one of Australia’s most significant growth corridors.

“Football has a great capacity to support and engage communities. Parklea specialises in building strong, high-quality residential communities and commercial precincts and have a significant presence in the Cardinia Shire so this is a perfect fit for all three,” Richmond CEO Brendon Gale said.

“We identified Cardinia Shire as a region that we were very keen to get involved with given it is a high-growth residential growth corridor that is already home to a large number of Richmond supporters.

“We have already started to enhance our presence in the region having run very successful open training sessions in Pakenham and Beaconsfield in recent seasons.

“We have also commenced work with schools in the region and we are in the process of identifying ways to support Windermere – a local charity that does enormously important work in the area most notably around suicide prevention.

“We will also be working with our preferred charity – The Alannah and Madeline Foundation – to bring their important programming around the prevention of bullying to the region.

“Richmond is a strong, national brand but equally we need to be mindful of identifying opportunities that can provide us with a strong secondary market but if we are to do that in Cardinia Shire we need to deliver genuine outcomes for the region and that will be our focus.

“Parklea and Cardinia Shire Council recognise the role we can play in their community and we look forward to working with them to deliver important community benefits.

Cardinia Shire Mayor, Cr Graeme Moore said the partnership was an exciting development that would bring the Tigers to Cardinia Shire on a regular basis.

“It is fantastic to be able to welcome the Richmond Football Club into the region in a formal way and I am sure that together we can make some positive changes in our community. I can’t wait to see how the partnership will develop in years to come,” Cr Moore said.

Andrew Facey, Parklea CEO said the land developers were proud to sponsor the Richmond Football Club and such a worthwhile community development program benefitting the Cardinia area.

“As the major land developer within the municipality, Parklea, backed by the Facey Family who have been in real estate within the area for 100 years, believes it is extremely important to “create a community”, not purely construct housing estates. We believe that the partnership between Parklea, Cardinia Shire Council and the Richmond Football Club is one that will certainly assist in reaching this goal, and we look forward to including the residents of our community in the various planned activities,” Mr Facey said.