New Donnybrook suburb must have a heart – say the Monteleone family

MELBOURNE, Australia - Dec. 15, 2015 - PRLog -- With activity moving quickly towards the creation of Melbourne’s newest suburb, the Monteleone family, owners of the property on which Donnybrook Springs will be located are campaigning to make sure that a heart and cultural / historic link to the area’s past is accommodated and embedded within the suburb’s planning and development.

The Monteleone family emigrated from Italy as refugees in 1968 following a massive earthquake that devastated their town and surrounding area.  With their home and life in ruins, Bernardo an artisan cheese maker, wife Caterina and three sons Nick, Anthony and Caz boarded a ship to far away Australia and a new beginning.

Working long hours and saving every penny brought the family closer to their dream of owning a farm and returning to their roots on the land and cheese making.  In 1986, the Monteleone’s purchased acreage in Donnybrook.  Nothing more than a neglected sheep farm with rotted fences and poor pasture, indeed the sales agent tried to talk Bernardo out of his purchase describing the land as no good for dairy farming.

Unfazed the Monteleone’s began milking a few dairy cows and followed this up by building a proper dairy shed with second hand timber and galvanized tin roofing from a disused egg farm in Mernda.  The family often jokes about how they were using ‘sustainable’ practices well before the term became a popular buzz word.

Over the years, the business went from strength to strength on the popularity of their renowned cheese which regularly received excellent reviews and won many notable awards.

However, apart from their cheese making and dairy endeavours, the Monteleone family promoted links to culture, heritage preservation and education.  The property became a meeting place for migrant Italian families and a centre of education for the community.

Hence the Monteleone’s proposal for a community precinct to act as a storybook of the region’s long and rich history incorporating indigenous Australians, migration, settlement, agriculture and industry development as the area enters a new chapter with the creation of Melbourne’s newest residential suburb.

“Whilst progress and development are inevitable, we feel that the community precinct proposed for Donnybrook Springs will enrich the area and lives of the residents” said Caz Monteleone.

“Far too many suburbs in Melbourne’s urban sprawl can best be described as clinical with cookie cutter community areas that lack a heart and genuine link to the past – hence our campaign to ensure that this is not the case for Donnybrook”.

ENDS

Issued by The Donnybrook Cheese Farm & the Monteleone family

Media enquiries:          Mr. Joe Perri
Joe Perri & Associates Pty Ltd
Tel/fax:          +61 3 9324 0362
Mobile:          +61 412 112 545
Email:          jperri@joeperri.com.au