Cerini Centre – Affordable Social Housing

Cerini Centre Building

The early days

Fr Cerini arrived in Warburton in 1954 to become the Parish Priest for the small Upper Yarra Catholic Community. The area was primarily known for logging and there was also a lot of activity due to the construction of the Upper Yarra Dam. The Seventh Day Adventists were well established in the town operating the famous Warburton Health Sanitarium, Signs Publishers and the Sanitarium Weetbix factory.

The local Catholic community was spread out over the Valley and had three small churches located in Warburton, Wesburn and Powelltown, the Powly church was later moved to Yarra Junction. However there was no Catholic School and Fr Cerini saw the importance of the establishing a Catholic School for his flock.

The Convent

Fr Cerini knew that if he built a school he would needs teachers so he contacted the Sisters of Saint Joseph, a teaching order of Catholic Nuns. They willingly accepted, so his first job was to design and build a convent to house them. These dedicated nuns are more commonly called The Josephites.

He planned the building and made all of the bricks by himself. With the aid of the local Catholic community, a mixture of locals including some Seventh Day Adventists and some Dam construction workers, he completed the convent and started work on the School.

The School

Once again Fr Cerini designed the building and it was an innovative design, years ahead of its time and very creative in concept, It was to be circular in shape with a central hall and all the classrooms, offices and facilities situated just inside the outer walls.

This was large project and once again many helpers donated their time, skills and labour. They came were community members of all faiths and workers from the Dam contruction. Work was carried out all hours of the day and often into the night.

Fr Cerini finally saw his vision become a reality in 1958 when  St Josephs Primary School opened. Sister Gertrude Mills and Sister Jerome started classes with 80 students and they covered years Prep to Grade 6.

When the High School was relocated from Warburton to Yarra Junction transport for the St Joseph’s School students became difficult. For two years Fr. Cerini drove a bus around the area to collect and return the students each school day. However due to ill health he could no longer drive the bus and he requested assistance from the Education Department which was rejected. In 1966, to bring the need for transport assistance to public notice, he walked 35 students, accompanied by parents, six miles from Yarra Junction to Warburton and back again for ten days. As a result the Government reached a compromise solution and the children were allowed on the school bus.

In 1987 the new Catholic Primary School was opened in Yarra Junction and for a few years St Joseph’s Primary School operated with two campuses. In December of 1994 the Warburton campus was closed and all the students were moved to St Josephs Primary School in Yarra Junction.

An excellent history of the school can be read here.

A new life

With St Josephs School now completely relocated to Yarra Junction the Warburton building was no longer used. A group of local Warburton Catholics took responsibility for it and renamed it the Warburton Cerini Community Centre to perpetuate the memory of Fr Cerini. The Cerini Centre was now administered by a committee of local volunteers and the hall was used for parish events, weddings, book sales and other functions for a many years.

However problems of land ownership cast a dark shadow over the future of the building. Fr Cerini had many talents, practical, pastoral, and theological but he had a cavalier attitude over title boundaries and the Cerini Centre was partly built on land owned by the Education Department. The Cerini Centre committee tried for years to regularise the land titles but in the end all efforts were unsuccessful and the group was disbanded.

For a few years the Cerini Centre was used by numerous groups for varying activities including Tae Kwon Do, weddings receptions, meditation, birthday parties, wakes, and finally to house students registered with the Upper Yarra Community House (UYCH) who were studying for their VCAL certificate.

Eventually the building was no longer used and it has been boarded up for the last few years. Instead of community events it now experiences graffiti vandals, break-ins and firebugs. Many people living locally to the building keep a sharp eye out for unwelcome visitors and hope to see better days for it.