People are often surprised by how many people work at CERES – last year over 300 people were on the payroll.

CERES draws people – some come to work for a year or so leaving to continue careers elsewhere, others stay for decades forming a kind of human bedrock that the place grows upon.

If you walk around CERES Park in Brunswick East every building including the giant millipede in the playground has been made, improved, fixed or rebuilt in some way by Adrian Mathie (that’s Adi hamming it up above).

For all the work Adrian did improving the infrastructure around CERES the bedrock he leaves behind is not a built one but a human one.

Throughout the 80’s and 90’s Adrian was a master builder running his own building business.

The impending housing boom of the early 2000’s meant the Australian dream was at Adrian’s fingertips. He had the whole deal – an expensive car, a trophy house, the boat, the overseas holidays – waiting there right in front him. 

Instead he chose a connected life – a life in service to people and place. 

In 2002 Adrian left his building company behind to work at CERES on a pilot program for young adults living with an intellectual disability that would continue on for the next two decades.

Over that time Adrian lived in a modest house and came to work each week in a white Falcon panel van. 

His belief in the universal benefit of a workplace open to all abilities was unshakeable.  That CERES was a public place only made that more so.

A man of huge empathy and energy – after a day at CERES Adrian would often continue working into the evening one-on-one with past and present members of his CERES crew.  

And like his business he always put people ahead of money – you could count on Adrian to back the underdog, employing a disarming wit and a wry way with words to fight for his crew, his colleagues or the Park. 

It’s what made people love him.

Adrian’s choice of life connection over material comfort made more than twenty years ago is one we increasingly find ourselves facing, which only makes me admire his courage and foresight all the more.

This weekend after a long illness, Adrian Mathie died –  he will be badly missed, but he’ll continue to live at CERES in the people and places he gave himself so freely to.  

Vale Adi