Community kitchen
Struggling families and individuals will benefit from a community project to provide freshly cooked nutritious meals.
Frankies café in Warragul, in conjunction with Baw Baw Combined Churches Food Relief has begun a community kitchen making quiches once a week.
Once the café has closed on Wednesday a busy band of volunteers arrive to prepare quiches. From 6pm until 9pm they make hundreds of quiches that will be distributed the following day.
Frankies proprietor Geoff Manson said the beauty of the project was its two-fold gains. Food for needy people and reducing food which would go to landfill.
Mr Manson said in the food industry there was a lot of waste. He said perfectly good food was discarded every day. It might simply be double yoked eggs or carrots that were not perfectly formed.
“We can turn that food into nutritious meals for needy people and reduce our growing landfill problem at the same time,” he said.
He said there were requirements to ensure that the ingredients were suitable.
The kitchen is already making 300 quiches a week but the volunteers are keen to increase that to 900.
Mr Manson said as well as needing volunteers in the kitchen they were keen to receive donations to assist with buying equipment.
Volunteer Stuart Robertson said individuals could volunteer time on a casual basis or weekly. “It also would suit businesses and corporations who might like to bond together while cutting vegetables and preparing pastry,” he said.
Some Frankies staff are also volunteering their time.
Mr Manson said people wanting to volunteer in the kitchen did not need any special skills. “Just a willingness to help and assist with various tasks is all that is required. “We’ll take all the help we can get,” he said.
Mr Robertson said the group had received a lot of assistance from Fair Share Melbourne which prepared thousands of meals a day.
“They have given us a lot of ideas with menu options and general preparation,” he said.
Businesses and farmers also can donate food to the project.
Mr Robertson emphasised that it was a community driven project.
“When Frankies café closes in the late afternoon the community kitchen opens. “They are separate entities,” he said.
Baw Baw Combined Churches Food Relief manage Anne Pascoe said there was a desperate need in the community for good quality meals.
The organisation is assisting between 50 and 60 families a week with pantry items and some fruit vegetables and perishable items.
“To have these meals is a great benefit to our families,” she said.
The organisation operates at 11 Pearse St, Warragul.
One in six Australians will experience at least one occasion of food insecurity every year.
More information is available on the website frankiescommunitykitchen.com.au