Helping out, One Box at a time

THE Northern Bay College Early Learning Centre and Kindergarten is doing its part to help families put food on their tables, one box at a time.

The centre’s director Amy Vasher-Cockle and her colleagues Neema Wright and Helen O’Connor are working closely with food relief charity The One Box to provide free and fresh food to her school community.

The One Box has been supporting Geelong families since Term 1 of 2020, and Northern Bay College Early Learning Centre and Kindergarten – which signed up in mid-2020 – presently receive 12 boxes of fresh fruit, vegetables, bread and milk, which they distribute among the Corio community.

When she started working with The One Box, Ms Vasher-Cockle learned many families were reluctant to accept food support because of feelings of shame, so she began offering the boxes to all families in the community, assuring them that they could come forward to ask for support regardless of their circumstances.

“It’s been increasingly popular and positive,” she said.

“It took a while to build up, because people didn’t want to be seen as being vulnerable, but I think COVID actually helped, because it levelled everyone out. Everyone had periods of hardship.

“People started looking for their box, and we would ask other people if they wanted a box, and we got more and more people saying yes.

“It’s such lovely quality – on the day we get it, it’s fresh, it’s fantastic. I think because the parents know that the quality is good and that they weren’t getting seconds, that spread the word.”

One carer in the community is so incredibly appreciative of the work the centre and kindergarten do, that they have begun bringing in pictures of the meals they have made with the ingredients in the box.

It is estimated about 53,000 Geelong residents require food assistance in a 12-month period, equivalent to about 2.48 million meals per year (as of June this year).

It’s anticipated the food relief system will need to provide more than 3.25 million meals to the Geelong region by 2031.

The One Box is a registered charity associated with national office fruit and milk delivery service The Fruit Box Group, and has leveraged the company’s infrastructure, purchasing power and supply chain to provide 40,000 boxes of fresh produce to 1,300 families in need in 2020, and an estimated 60,000 boxes to 1,500 families this year.