Break O’Day – St Helens

The Break O’Day municipality extends 3809 square kilometres along the East Coast of Tasmania from Eddystone Point (larapuna) and Mt William National Park in the north to Denison River in the south and west to the eastern portion of the Fingal Valley.  Our region includes a diverse range of scenery and townships from the arty and creative hub of St Marys, historic townships like Fingal, Mathinna and Weldborough to the coastal towns and hamlets such as Falmouth, Scamander, Beaumaris, Binalong Bay and St Helens – the Game Fishing capital of Tasmania.  St Helens is the main Township and service hub of the area and the largest town on the north east coast of Tasmania.

We joined the Boomerang Bag Community in 2017 through the leadership of our volunteer coordinator Jane Harlow. Our volunteers are passionate about making a difference and helping the environment. We meet every Friday from 1-4 pm at St Helens Neighbourhood House.  The volunteers get together to cut out, sew, screen print, iron etc.  We enjoy a chat and the opportunity to socialise whilst we work.  Everyone is welcome to join and support our group.  We have had volunteers from a diverse range of community, all ages, male and female, all capacities.   For those volunteers who cannot attend on Fridays we can provide kits to make at home and return to the centre.  We launched our bags when we reached the grand total of 1000 bags on Saturday 27th March 2019.   We have bags located in shops around St Helens and the community response has been hugely positive.   On 4th May we launched our bags in St Marys and Fingal Valley Neighbourhood House joined with us to begin a Boomerang Bags Activity in May 2019.

In April 2026, due to requests from visitors to our area, we added St Helens to our logo.  With a decline in volunteers, unfortunately the St Marys and Fingal Valley groups were unable to continue.  However, we hope there may be an opportunity in the future for them to rejoin the bag making community.

Our primary aim is to reduce plastics in our region.  We also use some of the money from the donations received for our bags to support local environmental projects and wildlife carers.

So call into the St Helens Neighbourhood House to find out more  and meet with the team on a Friday afternoon – we would love to hear from you.