GWYLF grants to help community to thrive

THE Give Where You Live Foundation’s 2023 Survive and Thrive program will provide more than $420,000 in grants to 15 local organisations to help create a fairer community across the Geelong region.

The 15 local selected organisations will receive up to $40,000 each to support those in the community experiencing crisis, homelessness and food insecurity.

With the assistance of public donations that were received during the 2022 Feed Geelong Appeal, The Foundation will steer $200,000 of the total grant funding solely towards supporting food security across the region.

Acting CEO of GWYLF, Meg Price said the impact of the grants would help to provide much needed support for food relief agencies within the area.

“As the cost of groceries and living expenses rise, so does the number of people in our community reaching out to food relief agencies for support with food assistance.

“Give Where You Live Foundation has deep relationships with community organisations across the region and we continue to see increasing levels of demand in the community services and emergency relief sector, with some agencies reporting an increase in demand of 239%* since 2020/21.

“We estimate these grants will provide over 25,000 meals to support food relief and reduce food insecurity.”

One of the 15 grant recipients is Bellarine Living and Learning Centre, which will receive $30,000 to employ a new project co-ordinator to further develop food security within their catchment.

Local Bellarine mother of four Melissa turned to Bellarine Living and Learning Centre’s foodbank during the pandemic and cited j how important the food agency getting her family back on track.

“We were left to rely on our savings and couldn’t afford petrol to drive to another food bank.

“The food bank here was a place where I could go to get fresh veggies and groceries for my family and have a chat with everyone there.”

Thanks to Bellarine Living and Learning Centre’s support during the tough time, Melissa and her family landed back on their feet and the mother of four now gives back to the community that helped her by volunteering at the food bank centre herself.

“I feel blessed that this service is available. It has made us stronger as a family.

“I now volunteer here and it’s a real community that helps each other.”

Melissa encouraged her local community to get behind their local foodbank agencies and help where they can.