Team building cook-up helps those in need

A CORPORATE team-building exercise held at Creswick last week resulted in the creation of 189 nutritious meals for people struggling to put food on the table.

The Charity Chef exercise involved 58 members of Specsavers support staff from around Australia and New Zealand, and was part of a wider three-day conference held locally.

Delivered though Corporate Challenge Events, Charity Chef is a program that requires groups to design and then cook a number of dishes which go on to be donated to a charity.

Split into nine teams while competing for the glory of cooking up the best meal, the Specsavers staff made a range of different dinner time classics like moussaka, fried rice and chicken curry, with gluten free and vegan options included on the menu.

At the end of the exercise they placed all of the pre-cooked meals into takeaway containers and donated the lot – and also the left-over ingredients that had been used – to the Creswick Neighbourhood Centre’s charitable and community food programs.

Delighted CNC manger Chrissy Austin said the donated meals would be hugely appreciated by an increasing number of local residents who are contending with food insecurity.

She said that in recent times there has been a noticeable increase in demand for CNC’s food support programs, including both its regular monthly community lunches and its ongoing food pantry program.

“I was speechless when I saw all of these beautiful nutritious meals,” Ms Austin said.

“Food security is still a huge issue for people in Creswick and especially this close to Christmas lots of people are quite anxious about where they will source food and gifts so this will be well received by those in need.

“We are definitely seeing an increase in demand for our Community Share Pantry and also our community lunches that we have on the second Tuesday of the month. We are seeing new people every time.

“With these meals we will be able to stock our Community Share Pantry fridge for people to take as they need, and we will also be able to stock our freezer so we can restock the fridge as needed.”