Students Eat Up with sponsors’ support

EASTWOOD Street’s Woolworths has donated thousands of dollars’ worth of supermarket gift vouchers to the city’s local Eat Up program.

Facilitated by Alfredton Rotary Club, the initiative sees approximately 350 cheese sandwiches made for Ballarat primary school students weekly, but the recent donation worth $2800 will fund healthy nut-free snacks to add to the lunch packs over the next 12 months.

Rotarian Deb Robertson said the Club is grateful for this additional support, as the need for Eat Up has increased.

“We were absolutely thrilled when Woollies said they were able to support us into extending our support for the kids in need in our community,” she said.

“The amount of students supported by Eat Up has been growing each year.”

Over the last four years, Alfredton Rotary Club has made 27,000 sandwiches to help prevent children from 20 Ballarat schools from going hungry.

Year 7 and 8 students at Ballarat Grammar are part of the volunteer group putting the packs together, alongside 10 Rotarians and friends.

Eastwood Street Woolworths currently provides free bread to Eat Up, which is also sponsored by Nature’s Cargo who supply cheese and margarine. Caine Property also take part in the initiative.

Some young people within the L2P Learner Driver Mentor Program are making Eat Up deliveries as part of their driving hours, with the support of their instructor, Rotarian Paul Medwell.

Eat Up was originally born in Shepparton, under the leadership of Lyndon Galea. Ms Robertson’s daughter heard him speaking about the program at a conference in Canberra in 2016, and encouraged Alfredton Rotary Club to get on board.