SecondBite together with City of Sydney and Coles donate equivalent of 158,750 meals for individuals and families impacted by Covid

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Food insecurity in NSW has reached dire levels with one charity seeing demand for its food relief services growing on average by 20 per cent each week since the Delta strain hit.

Food insecurity in NSW has reached dire levels with one charity seeing demand for its food relief services growing on average by 20 per cent each week since the Delta strain hit.

Last week, Addi Road Community Organisation packed and delivered 1200 food hampers across NSW and expect that number to double in the next 10 days.

“We’ve been doing food aid for a long time, and pre-Covid we already started to notice an increase in food insecurity,” Addi Road CEO Rosanna Barbero said.

“There are a lot of compounding and contributing factors that have led to this increase. Covid has just intensified the need because all of a sudden the economy has shut down, shutting down people’s livelihoods.”

Food rescue organisation SecondBite banded together with City of Sydney and Coles this week to donate the equivalent of 158,750 meals for individuals and families impacted by Covid to be distributed by more than 100 NSW community food providers, including Addi Road.

The City of Sydney provided SecondBite with a $100,000 donation as part of its 2021 Lockdown Response, while Coles donated 120,000 essential food pantry items as part of the Coles and SecondBite Community Food Program.

Addi Road relies on its 300 volunteers to help feed an average of 8000 people each week via two food rescue, low-cost grocery stores in Camperdown and Marrickville.

“Anyone that comes into one of our stores and says, ‘I’m hungry, I need to shop.’ We say, ‘OK, if you can pay a little bit, you can pay – if you can’t, it doesn’t matter’,” Ms Barbero said.

“Whatever happens, people walk out that door with fresh fruit and vegetables. And this is where SecondBite are extraordinary because they’re able to secure from Coles the fresh fruit and vegetables that we need which is so important to build immunity and have good mental health.

“When you’re giving people groceries, which is what SecondBite does, you’re providing those moments when people and families are preparing food and there’s a comfort in that preparation and opportunity for family conversations to occur because you can be living in lockdown down under the same roof but it doesn’t mean that you’re engaging.”

Most of Addi Road hampers are distributed across Sydney, but Ms Barbero said they were receiving distress calls from across the state.

“We had an SOS call from an Aboriginal community in Walgett [on Wednesday] and within five hours, we organised a car and a volunteer driver to drive food out there. It’s about 7.5 hours away,” Ms Barbero said.

Addi Road ambassador and former Socceroo Craig Foster said Addi Road was more than just food relief for those in need, it was a community network.

“When Covid struck in 2020, Addi Road set up a crisis relief food centre and spent many, many months packing every morning getting the food hampers out.

“Now the Delta strain has hit, the organisation is having to increase capacity almost daily. And so the volunteers continue to do an amazing job in just churning out these really valuable food hampers so that people at least can have some food security during a really difficult time.”

Coles Chief Sustainability, Property and Export Officer Thinus Keeve said the supermarket giant had a 10-year partnership with SecondBite and was committed to continuing its food donation.

“We know that so many people are facing tough times in Sydney, so when SecondBite approached us to be involved in this food relief initiative, we wanted to provide our support,” Mr Keeve said.

“This is something we know matters to our customers too, who donated more than $1.6 million to our recent SecondBite Winter Appeal at Coles supermarkets, Liquorland, First Choice Liquor Market and Vintage Cellars stores.”

SecondBite CEO Steve Clifford said: “In times like these we are very grateful for the generous support of partners such as The City of Sydney and Coles, and our amazing agencies. Thanks to their support, more Sydney residents will have access to the nutritious food they need in this difficult time.”

To donate to SecondBite visit secondbite.org



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