Stasia Dabrowski was a fixture in Garema Place. Her mobile soup kitchen a mainstay of Friday nights for more than 35 years, serving meals to hundreds of people in need.
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"Don't talk about me. I do nothing. But I am a very happy woman, the happiest in the world. Because I know there is a solution for every human problem," she once said.
Now the long-serving volunteer, who died in 2020 aged 94, will be commemorated with a permanent sculpture.
A tender process will soon open to find an artist, with the work expected to be completed and installed in Garema Place in early 2026, what would have been Dabrowski's centenary year.
Josh Kenworthy, Dabrowski's grandson, said his nan was a humble soul who shied away from publicity and just wanted to lend a hand.
"That's how she was brought up - that you just help people. She was always giving and always asking if people needed anything. It's great, the statue is something that will be there forever in Garema Place and this way, Nan's work will definitely be remembered," Mr Kenworthy said.
Dabrowski was born in a Polish village close to the border with Czechoslovakia in 1926. Forced to flee Ukrainian fascists' ethnic cleansing before World War II, Dabrowski then lived with her family without running water and food.
"No pen could write what I saw in my life," she told The Canberra Times in 1992.
"When I see a person who is hungry today I couldn't go without doing something about it."
Dabrowski came to Australia in 1964.
Dobrowski began her mobile soup kitchen in Garema Place in the mid-1980s and by 2000 she was serving several hundred loaves of bread and at least 100 litres of homemade vegetable soup to more than 300 people a week.
Babysitting at night and cleaning houses during the day meant Dabrowski earned enough money to buy the ingredients. On Thursdays, she peeled and cooked 180 kilograms of vegetables in preparation for Friday night.
The mobile soup kitchen eventually attracted wider support, including from the Snow Foundation.
Arts Minister Tara Cheyne said honouring Dabrowski was an obvious choice.
"Stasia Dabrowski's own life was far from easy. Her own early experiences without running water, wood or gas for heat or food in a Polish village before WWII, left her with a real desire to help others. Thousands of Canberrans were recipients of that compassion," Ms Cheyne said.
Dabrowski was the 1996 Canberra Citizen of the Year and 1999 ACT Senior Australian of the Year. In 2017, she was named the ACT Local Hero of the Year.
Snow Foundation chief executive Georgina Byron said Dabrowski was "a true hero whose unwavering dedication to making a difference in helping the city's most vulnerable was inspiring".
"A statue and recognition of Stasia's tireless work in the community is a wonderful tribute," Ms Byron said.
The ACT government has committed $300,000 for a public artwork celebrating the achievements of a significant woman by an artist or artists who are women or gender diverse or non-binary.
Lis Johnson has been commissioned to complete a sculpture of Susan Ryan, the trailblazing Labor senator for the ACT who died in 2020, which will be installed in the Old Parliament House gardens.
Jasper Lindell
Jasper Lindell joined The Canberra Times in 2018. He is a Legislative Assembly reporter, covering ACT politics and government. He also writes about development, transport, heritage, local history, literature and the arts, as well as contributing to the Times' Panorama magazine. He was previously a Sunday Canberra Times reporter.
Jasper Lindell joined The Canberra Times in 2018. He is a Legislative Assembly reporter, covering ACT politics and government. He also writes about development, transport, heritage, local history, literature and the arts, as well as contributing to the Times' Panorama magazine. He was previously a Sunday Canberra Times reporter.
