$1.7m extra to help feed region’s hungry
GEELONG council has rubber-stamped a landmark $1.7 million agreement to lift the region’s food relief efforts, and provide meals to the city’s most vulnerable residents.
Councillors on Tuesday unanimously approved the spend after receiving a report that revealed food assistance groups were struggling to keep up with growing demand from the more than 50,000 residents experiencing food insecurity — with a current estimated shortage of 320,000 meals a year.
The City of Greater Geelong will now spend up to $1 million to renovate a building on Morgan St in North Geelong to operate as a notfor-profit food relief distribution and storage centre, to be run by the Geelong Food Relief Centre (GFRC).
The group will also receive $700,000 over the next five years to help cover operating costs and improve its ability to attract volunteers and philanthropic assistance.
Community health, wellbeing and safety chair Cr Pat Murnane said the city’s current food relief system was in need of urgent help.
“It is a meaningful step in addressing the distressing reality that food insecurity in our city is on the rise,” Cr Murnane said.
“In reality, though, this is only a small step on the road to genuine social equity for our community. The fact that we need this facility to support 50,000 Geelong residents — 15,000 of whom will be heavily dependent on it — shows the depth of social issues Geelong and Australia generally needs to be working on in the years ahead.”
Many councillors thanked Cr Murnane during the meeting for pushing the city to support the GFRC, with Cr Bruce Harwood praising his “persistence and doggedness”.
In March, councillors approved spending $10,000 to enter into an option agreement with the owner of the
North Geelong warehouse to allow GFRC the opportunity to lease the site from July 1.
The GFRC currently receives and stores about 70 per cent of the food supplied into the region’s food assistance system, which currently provides about two million meals a year to those experiencing food insecurity.
A food assistance business case was developed by Social Ventures Australia Consulting at the request of City Hall, to help it decide whether to invest the $1.7 million.
The report found GFRC suffered from insufficient food storage and distribution capacity to deal with growing demand for food assistance.
“Food insecurity has been a significant issue for Greater Geelong,” the report noted.
Based on national averages, the report found Geelong residents might currently require about 2.5 million meals a year. It said the current system provided about 2.16 million “at a high-level” — 330,000 meals short of estimated demand.
The report found about 53,000 Geelong residents were experiencing food insecurity, with about 16,000 of those missing out on an entire day’s worth of meals each week.
It estimated that with estimated population growth, Geelong’s food assistance system would need at least 3.2 million meals by 2031.