Food drive for those in need

YOU might have seen bright yellow bins popping up in supermarkets across town.

These donation bins are part of Bendigo Foodshare’s latest food drive, sending pantry staples to people in need in Central Victoria.

Manager of Bendigo Foodshare Bridget Bentley said food insecurity has risen recently due to a number of factors.

“We’ve seen an increase in demand,” she said. “We’ve already seen that prior to lockdown as a result of the government support winding back and people finding pressure and stress through rising rental prices.

“With increasing electricity cost with the colder months coming on, there’s been more and more people struggling.”

The food drive will last all of June, and Ms Bentley said they are looking for essential pantry items such as cereal, tins of baked beans, tomatoes and fruit, biscuits and pasta.

“This is part of the need to get food in and out across to people in Central Victoria that are doing it tough,” she said.

“The pantry staples and long-life items tend to be things that we find harder to source through our supermarket rescues and existing food donors.”

“If everybody that can, even if it was half of the population, put one thing in those bins that would be an extraordinary amount of food for Bendigo Foodshare.

“Eighty cents for a packet of pasta it’s not much in terms of financial impact on our pockets, but it makes a huge difference for a family being able to put dinner on the table at home.”

Bendigo Foodshare is preparing to move to its bigger location, raising $1.55 million of its $1.8 million goal to establish a double-capacity community food hub.