By Callum Ludwig
With inflation remaining high and interest rates once again rising at the start of February, for many it can be hard to know how they’ll get by.
LinC Yarra Valley is doing its best to help ensure the Upper Yarra community can access fresh food and help ease the financial pressure on some of our most vulnerable community members.
Organiser of LinC’s Fresh Food Program Mark Knoll said the need for food is just becoming bigger and bigger.
“Two years ago or three years ago, before Covid, a big day was 30 to 35 people. Nowadays, we get up to 70 and we have had as many as 92. We have had three new clients just today,” he said.
“One of the most heartbreaking things I see is when people come in for the first time, and they get two or three shopping bags for food and are overwhelmed. I’ve seen two grown men this year alone break down and physically weep, that’s how much it meant to them.”
LinC’s Fresh Food Program runs at four locations each Friday:
Millgrove Baptist Church at 10am
Woori Yallock Presbyterian Church at 10am
The Wandin North Senior Citizens Centre/Yarra Valley Seventh-Day Adventist Church at 10am
The Upper Yarra Family Centre in Yarra Junction at 1pm.
Mr Knoll said there are two things that drive the financial strain clients tell him about.
“One is interest rates, and the other one is rent and utility prices. A couple of years ago, you could rent a house in Millgrove for under $300, now it’s $450 a week,” he said.
“If you have a single person or a single pensioner, they would have no money left if they rented a house in Millgrove and that’s one of the cheaper places. That’s why so many come to the Food Program because if they collect $30 or $40 worth of food, that allows them to buy another service or something else they need,” he said.
LinC has formed partnerships with Second Bite, Seville Aldi, Yarra Junction Woolworths, Food Bank through the Anglican Church, the Buddha Bodhivana Monastery in East Warburton and Sander’s Apples in Three Bridges to help bring a variety of fresh food and pantry items to those in need each Friday.
Mr Knoll said it’s vital they have those connections.
“This week for example we could only get one pallet from Second Bite, but Woolworths gave us four black crates, and I got probably 14 crates out of Aldi including a lot of eggs as it’s very important we have enough each week,” he said.
“It’s becoming more obvious to us here that people just can’t make ends meet with the rising energy prices, grocery prices and house payments because of the interest rates, and it becomes very essential that we are able to help them.”
Other Food Programs throughout the Yarra Ranges can be found at ADRA’s Redwood Centre in Warburton for their Chewsday Bite program, HICCI in Healesville the Discovery Church in Mt Evelyn and Goodness Gracious in Mooroolbark.
