Providing meals for vulnerable community members

HEATHCOTE Community House Food Relief Meal Program is successfully delivering invaluable support to many in the community, thanks to the village of partners and supporters.

The program commenced in 2022 following the receipt of funding from Bendigo Foodshare’s Cafes for COVID.

“We quickly realised the unmet need for this valuable support and continued to provide what we could, with the very limited resources we had,” said community house executive officer Vicki Forde.

“As the costs of living continue to skyrocket with high rents, food prices, insurances and general household bills, just to name a few, many in our community are feeling the impacts and unfortunately the need for support and assistance is continuing to grow.

“We now have many who are working and are struggling to provide the everyday needs for themselves and/or their families.

“Not only are we heavily impacted with the costs of living but we have uncovered many vulnerable people in our community through this program.

“Our town has a median age of 58 which is very high.

“This older demographic means that there is more chronic disease and illness and many more injuries, among our town’s residents.

“We have found people who are not eating very much at all, or are not eating nutritious meals, which causes all sorts of health challenges, resulting in poor physical and mental health impacts.

“We deliver these meals via those organisations and trusted points of contacts that people already have in place, and we are so very thankful to our community connection delivery partners.

“This program supplies organisations in Heathcote and our surrounding communities with frozen meals for people who may be needing some temporary support.

“Our meals support people temporarily whilst we work with them, or refer them to other organisations, agencies, government supports that can provide them with the help they need.”

Ms Forde said the community house could not continue without the funding provided locally.

“Mandalay Resources came on board in 2023, and have provided funding for new freezers, meal ingredients, and necessary packaging needs, along with invaluable corporate volunteering support.

“At the beginning of this year we added another fantastic local community partner in our local bank, Community Bank Heathcote & District.

“Funding from our local bank has provided more fridges, as well as the ongoing meal ingredients and packaging.

“This partnership has given us the opportunity to scale up the number of meals and bring down costs by having the means and infrastructure for bulk buying.

“In 2023 we were able to provide approximately 95 meals per month increasing this number to 175 per month in 2024.

“We have been consistently working to increase the number of meals provided per month to meet the needs.

“With our current funding partners on board we are well on the way, with over 500 meals being produced in March.

“The success of this program depends highly on the generosity of people and could not exist without our volunteers.

“Our village of generous community members have also provided delicious and nutritious fresh garden produce and even some kitchen equipment along the way.

“Our local Heathcote Post Office and news agency are currently providing the labels for all our meals, saving us an enormous amount of funds.”

Ms Forde said the community house would welcome anyone who has time to help the program.

“We are always looking for people who have some time available to help, and we would love to hear from them.”

Anyone who would like to volunteer can contact the community house on 5433 2820 or [email protected].