By Callum Ludwig
Extreme demand for food relief has seen LinC Yarra Valley’s Fresh Food Program record a dramatic increase in people accessing their stocks.
In the last financial year, LinC recorded $1.62 million of fresh food that was delivered to the community across its five sites that operate each Friday.
Stepping aside from getting set up at the Upper Yarra Family Centre on Friday 2 August, LinC’s Fresh Food program coordinator Mark Knoll said the biggest challenge is the number of clients they are getting.
“This time last year, a big week was 70 in a week, we’ve had over 143 this year and that’s our biggest week, but we’re getting 120 plus every week,” he said.
“Volunteer-wise, I’m pretty right at the moment I’ve got plenty of people wanting to volunteer but food is where the shortage comes, we’re lucky Second Bite are still able to deliver,”
“Today was two and a half pallets and a big pallet is about a ton of food in there was about four tonnes and a bit and across our five sites today we’ll probably hand out about 12 tonnes.”
Including volunteer labour and the cost of pickups, LinC estimates it delivered almost $2.1 million in value to the community through the Fresh Food program alone in 2023-24.
Mr Knoll said they are seeing a big demand for pantry items and fresh food in general.
“We’re starting to get in touch with the kindergartens, we give apples and fruit and veggies to a few of the kindergartens around here to help cook for the children, because they’re starting to see the other side of the squeeze, where kids are running up to kindergarten without breakfast or lunch, that’s the biggest change over the last 12 months he said.
“We’ve seen the biggest changes in young mums where they are a dual-income family and a baby comes along, and they are on maternity leave for about 16 weeks before that finishes, they’re back to one income while their power’s up, the water’s up, gas is up, rates are up and rents or home loans are up so they’re a working poor family and we are seeing plenty of them coming along now.”
Casey MP Aaron Violi came along to lend a hand at the Upper Yarra Family Centre and see for himself the efforts that go into the program each week.
Mr Violi said he’s been lucky enough to attend two of LinC’s AGMs where he’s seen the level of work they do and was very keen to come out and see first-hand the benefit that’s going directly to the community.
“It’s deeply concerning [the level of demand for food relief] and it’s consistent across every food organisation that I speak to and not just in the last six months, since being elected, essentially the last two years, the numbers are going up,” he said.
“There is more demand than ever for our community which is concerning and equally at the same time that there’s more demand than ever for these organisations, their costs are going up, putting more pressure on these organisations and unfortunately many are also reporting that their volunteer numbers are down,”
“There are significant challenges that we face in the community with the cost of living crisis and organisations like LinC are on the front line of providing those services, that’s why I’m always keen to get out and visit them and to say thank you but see what else we can do to continue to support them because we need organisations like LinC in our community.”
LinC receives the majority of the items it disperses from SecondBite, with 338,150kg of food provided alone in the last financial year. Other donations of items come from Sanders Apples, Aldi, Woolworths, the Buddha Bodhivana Monastery in East Warburton, Eastern Food Share, Coles, Bakers Delight, Yarra Junction Bakery, personal donations and D & W Knoll while monetary donations were given by Dunlop Shoes, Nappy Collective and Holy Fools.
Mr Knoll said he hopes Aaron [Violi] can take away from the day just how much need there is in the community.
“I think more and more politicians and people in government are starting to understand the pressures and the cost of living, especially those people on the margins and in the Uper Yarra, we’re a fairly marginalised group of people,” he said.
The Victorian Government this week also announced a new $4.5 million Community Food Relief Program which will provide funding streams to local, regional and statewide food relief.
Local groups can apply for grants of between $10,000 and $50,000 – or up to $75,000 for partnerships – and Mr Knoll said LinC is already looking into what they can apply for.
“Wre digging through it now to see what support we can gain out of it because a lot of people will donate money but they won’t donate money to overheads and in that grant, there is some overhead allowance for delivery so it’s a grant that we’ll look at very soon,” he said.
