Communities give birth to Opportunity

A series of thoughts about community prompted by a recent trip through the north eastern Goldfields and Murchison. 

Wiluna is a small dusty town situated about 1000km north west of Perth at the start of the Canning Stock Route and the Gunbarrel Highway. Until I began reading the tourist signage around this isolated community, I had no idea that a household name in Western Australia had its roots here.

On November 29th 1927 Luigi D’Orsogna stepped onto the wharf in Fremantle, determined to find a better life for his wife and eight children, whom he’d left behind in Italy. By 1931 the Great Depression had hit Western Australia hard and, hearing of Wiluna’s prosperity, Luigi caught the train here in 1931 and found a job in the gold mines.

Two years later he’d saved enough to buy passage for two of his sons, Caesare (aged 16) and Tommaso (Tom, 14), who joined him in Wiluna. Luigi persuaded Jim Clarke, who managed the Wiluna Meat Supply, to give Tom a job. The youngster was to spend the next four years working in the smallgoods manufacturing operation adjacent to the butcher’s shop – and this was effectively the beginning of D’Orsogna Limited, as it is known today.

It was not until 1949 that Tom opened his own shop in West Perth. By 1951 two other brothers, John and Caesare, had joined the firm and it became D’Orsogna Brothers Pty Ltd. Today, D’Orsogna is a leading manufacturer and supplier of meat products right across Australia – and it all began, right here on this dusty street corner in Wiluna!

No matter how small our contribution may be to a community, or how small that community's contribution may seem to us as individuals, each interaction is a part of a process that leads to new opportunities. Cherish these opportunities and embrace the people you meet along the way since each interaction may be more profound than you imagine at the time.