Carmel Johnson
By Natasha Fujimoto
FROM her earliest memories growing up in the small town of Kyneton, Carmel Johnson learned to truly value community. She inherited the belief that a community is only as strong as its leaders, and that if one has the ability, one should work to support it. Over the past four decades, Carmel has drawn upon her family’s egalitarian values to help advance Greater Shepparton. From leadership roles and advocacy in special needs in education to fundraising for community health and the arts, Carmel’s passionate and ongoing contributions have been both transformative and lasting.
Currently the Head of Development at the Shepparton Art Museum (SAM), Carmel also serves as the Deputy Chair of The Fairley Foundation, which supports numerous programs that enhance arts, culture, and educational opportunities for young people in the region. With four decades of experience on various corporate and community boards, Carmel’s journey has come a long way from her days as a proud Loreto College student and later, a teacher’s college graduate in Ballarat.
Trained as a primary and special education teacher, Carmel’s first teaching position was at the Royal Children’s Hospital School before relocating several years later to Shepparton.
“I was very fortunate to work at RCH. It was a very humbling experience and an experience that enabled me to grow up overnight… it was an honour and a privilege to work alongside parents who would and always do everything for their child.”
Moving to Shepparton in 1978 following her marriage, Carmel worked for a short time supporting children with additional needs in a regular school before being offered the inaugural principal position at Graham Street Special School (now Banmira Specialist School – senior campus). No more than a series of portables, the new school was the first special education facility of its kind in Shepparton. When Carmel stepped into her new role, the school had only five teachers, with no running water, sewage, playground, or even students.
Although Carmel jokes that this school year was the one that turned her hair white, by the year’s end, the ground-breaking and progressive school had 17 teachers and over 120 students.
“Graham Street was a lot of hard work. It was a challenge, but I worked alongside a lot of dedicated and very committed teachers to special education, and we felt as a school, as a teaching community, very humbled to be entrusted with the lives of those children whose parents, for many, many years in most cases, had little or no support for their child.”
Carmel described her time at Graham Street as an honour and a privilege, watching the children progress and thrive. In 1981, she moved to the GV Centre, now the NDIS provider Connect GV, as manager. That year was declared the International Year of the Disabled Person, marking the beginning of a new era of awareness and funding. This shift focused on what people could do, rather than what they couldn’t. Carmel said:
“People and children with disabilities and their families were being recognised for their abilities and what they dared to dream.
“Since then, children and adults have gone on to achieve great things because of this shift in perception and our community has supported them. That has continued to the point now where people with disabilities and their families today probably can’t imagine just how much progress has been made.”
Working alongside the community on numerous campaigns, Carmel has come to strongly believe that Greater Shepparton is exceptional for both its renowned generosity and its ‘hard-working man’s ethos.’ Not endowed with wealth inherited from gold fields, nor fortunate in its proximity to Melbourne, Shepparton is a place, she said, where the community is simply used to rolling up its sleeves to get things done.
After five years at the GV Centre, Carmel took on her ‘dream job’ as Community Liaison Officer at Goulburn Valley Health, working alongside other tireless advocates on the capital campaign to build a children’s wing at the hospital. Joining the likes of National Party Leader Peter Ross Edwards, then-GV Health CEO Tony Milan, and board chair Graham Hill, Carmel once again observed the power of local philanthropy. Opened in 1989, after just 12 to 15 months of campaigning, $5.7M had been raised to build and equip the new children’s wing, with $2.3M of that amount coming directly from community efforts.
“This was an extraordinary amount of money. I saw a community come together and everybody, I would say, one way or another, almost every single person in Shepparton was engaged and contributed. They might have only given $1, but that dollar was well appreciated. There was a lot of advocacies and lobbying for the new children’s ward, so it was a real community celebration to see it finally achieved,” Carmel said.
Constantly on a learning curve and gaining skills and knowledge from those she serves and works alongside, Carmel’s role evolved over time into becoming the GV Health Foundation Director. In this capacity, she helped facilitate and support key developments, such as the establishment of the Rural Clinical School, before stepping down from the role after 30 years of dedicated service in December 2021.
In awe of the vision, leadership, and cultural significance of the new Shepparton Art Museum (SAM) for the region, Carmel’s appointment as the gallery’s Development Manager was a natural fit. It also reflected her long-standing devotion to the arts – Carmel was the inaugural chair of The Shepparton Festival, helping to deliver the program with a modest budget of just $600, some 29 years ago.
Though she was sad to leave GV Health behind, Carmel knew the new $50M building would be far-reaching for the community. Today, she continues to speak effusively about the museum’s cultural significance for the region.
“I think SAM has been a game changer. I think this beautiful big ‘box’ has provided a lot of intrigue, a lot of interest, and I think some new pride in the fact that we now have not probably but the bespoke regional art gallery in Victoria. We have the wonderful Kaiela Arts, and I’m told by many visitors that Shepparton has one of the best Visitor Centres in regional Victoria. And of course, each of the individual facilities are supported by such caring and welcoming volunteers. And we have the most beautiful, beautiful art museum with an astonishing collection of ceramics and some beautiful art that the community is now really appreciating. I think the whole precinct has become the village green for Shepparton.
“Our café is wonderful, with beautiful services being delivered by young people, and I think that tells us a lot about our faith and hope in young people and the future of Shepparton. I think SAM is full of young, vibrant creatives with a real commitment to making this museum the best it can be.”
Reiterating how privileged she has been to serve her community in many roles over the past four decades, Carmel views Greater Shepparton as a region on an “upward spiral.” Far from satisfied with her own contributions to date, this fine community leader added,
“I think that I have been honoured to have the roles I’ve had here in Shepparton, and I hope I will continue to make a contribution—be it at SAM or in the community—but that will certainly be my endeavour, and hopefully for many years to come”
