Paris may have the Mona Lisa. But we have Rebekah

You don’t need to be an art lover to appreciate this smile and the story behind it…

You helped us, help Rebekah. She’s the heartbeat of her growing family; always happy to stop and have a friendly chat and share her grandmother’s deliciously rustic recipes.

The epitome of so many mums we meet, all trying to make miracles happen when hope is scarce.

With four children to feed and take care of, the youngest just six months old, to say she has her hands full is, well, an understatement.

Things are a little easier now that Rebekah can access a regular and reliable source of fresh, healthy food thanks to the incredible support of Victorians like YOU through our Winter Appeal.

We’re so glad you can help us be there for all the ‘Rebekah’s. Without them, our communities can’t thrive.

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Save your myki – you won’t need it for this bus!

Much needed food is rolling into local communities on our supersized purple Mobile Supermarket Buses with more than 9,000 families hopping on over the last 12 months to fill their empty bags with beautiful, wholesome food.

With entry at the back and exit at the front, the 18-metre ‘bendy’ buses offer a miniature supermarket experience complete with shelving and refrigeration stocked with a range of fresh veg, fruit, staple pantry items and in-demand chilled foods like yogurt and milk. Each bus delivers 2,000 kg of fresh, healthy food – that’s 3,363 meals for every bus trip.

These buses allow us to reach vulnerable people living in the heart of our suburbs who don’t have the capacity to travel or aren’t able to access food relief centres. It’s a way we can provide a truly respectful service offering food that suits our culturally and linguistically diverse communities.

Over the year, these mighty machines have made 71 trips and distributed more than 245,000 meals across metropolitan Melbourne – that’s despite all the roadworks

We couldn’t have done this without our incredible partners, the team at Kinetic and DECJUBA Foundation and we’re so thankful on behalf of those 9,000 families to have their continuing support to keep our bountiful buses on the road.

We like to think of them as wheels with feels.

All weekend long, you rocked up to our Emergency Food Drive with your smiles, your beautiful words of encouragement and best of all, your arms and boots chock-a-block full of food.

There were cars of all kinds, scooters and Harleys, a gleaming convoy of vintage Thunderbirds and with our volunteers cheering them on like a finals crowd at the ‘G not one but TWO big red CFA trucks.

Paddy and Tom just happened to be dropping off food with their Mum and Dad when the Bulla CFA arrived, and it’s fair to say they were stoked to give our generous Fireys a helping hand to get all that lovely food off the truck and into our bins.

You know that line from David Bowie, ‘We can be heroes – just for one day’? Well, you were…except it was TWO days and the impact of your generosity is going to last for much longer than that

Couldn’t get there in person? You can still be part of our Virtual Food Drive so head over there and fill up a bag, basket or trolley to help feed more Victorians.

A kitchen with heart

What do you get when you combine chef Karen Martini with a Chobani yogurt raising funds for Foodbank? A ‘Kindness Kitchen’!

That’s right, Martini turned her St Kilda restaurant Saint George into a Kindness Kitchen for a fundraising lunch with Foodbank and Chobani to support people struggling to put food on the table.

Tickets to the 3-course lunch cost $7.90 – the cost of Chobani’s limited edition Foodbank Passion Fruit and Strawberry yogurt.

Funds raised by the lunch and tubs of yogurt are being donated to Foodbank, with six meals donated for every tub sold.

Martini said she was thrilled to partner with Chobani and Foodbank to help tackle such an important and present issue within the community.

You can get your hands on the Chobani x Foodbank yogurt in Woolworths until October this year.

With six meals from every tub sold donated to Foodbank, we can keep supplying healthy food to people in need.

Women nurtured at McAuley House

McAuley Community Services for Women (McAuley House) offers a variety of life-changing services for women impacted by homelessness, family violence, or both.

Operating across Ballarat and Footscray, their team provides longer-term housing and support. But really, McAuley House also offers something even more meaningful – a restorative space for women to learn and support one another.

Jess, their Food 4 Life Facilitator, works in the kitchen each week and makes sure the 25 residents of McAuley House are fed healthy, nutritious meals every day. Once a week, residents and staff get together for a communal lunch – the perfect opportunity to connect, eat and catch up.

Thanks to McAuley House’s programs, women are not only provided with a safe place to live, but are nurtured into reviving and building skills in the kitchen – something that’s particularly valuable to women who may not have had access to a kitchen for some time.

Education like this is invaluable, helping residents continue to thrive when they eventually move on to independent living, restored and renewed thanks to our inspiring community partner.

Turns out food is Love, Actually

As a parent, your reason for being is making sure your kids have all their needs met, particularly the most basic ones, like healthy, nutritious food.

Leileene, who has two primary school aged kids, was living with the fear of not being able to do this loving thing.

Growing up in an environment where people didn’t ask for help, she was expected to be strong and create a ‘picture perfect’ image. So, when things got rough the thought of reaching out was terrifying.

An invite to a Foodbank market held in the lead up to Christmas at her kid’s school (in partnership with our bestie Chobani), felt for Leileene like the first time it might be okay to accept some help.

“I was in shock at the variety of fresh produce on offer. My kids kept asking ‘what does it cost?’ I’ve never seen them so excited to have fresh veggies in the fridge before! Foodbank has helped my family through tough times and I’m extremely grateful that my kids have been able to see that there is still so much good in the world.”

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With YOUR help, our Christmas Appeal put 5.3 MILLION beautiful, healthy meals into the hands of Victorians

Feeding 57,000 people a day takes more than a village. In the lead up to Christmas, we saw demand reach epic proportions, with dual income families all over the state struggling to afford food let alone Christmassy treats.

We knew that working people couldn’t get to charities during business hours.

Thanks to thousands of generous people like YOU, Foodbank set up special Christmas markets in the north, south, east and west of Melbourne so all those hard-working people could pick up whatever they needed to feed their families without stress.

More than 1,000 families filled their bags and baskets with farm fresh veggies and fruit along with essential staples like bread, milk, pasta and rice…enough for 50,000 meals plus a few little extra treats which brought out the smiles.

The markets were just one part of a huge, whole effort delivered hand in hand with our 500 charity partners, 1,000 schools and YOU.

Together we made sure all those humble, hardworking families around Victoria weren’t forgotten. As if we’d ever let that happen!

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Over the food rainbow with you

Since the bushfires of 2019, Victorians have had zero time to reflect and slow down. Here at Foodbank, we’re focused on how to help everyone get back to living their lives again, beyond simply making it through to the end of each day.

We’ve given ourselves a big mission. To learn how communities have been impacted over the last four years and understand how we might better respond to that. We call this our ‘Neighbourhood Assessments’ (yep – it has Sesame Street vibes).

Our team is currently getting to know all 79 local government ‘neighbourhoods’ in Vic, listening to people of every age and situation, as well as seeking out the food data that underpins their stories.

By ‘data’ we mean “who needs what” and “where are the gaps.” Sure, it will take time – there are no shortcuts. But with these insights, we’re creating community food programs that give everyone agency and power where they live.

These programs celebrate and support community through food. Growing food, social enterprises, learning and sharing how to cook, socialising in our cafes, and providing healthy food options through our social supermarkets.

We want people who are trying to get through life on the basics to be able to enjoy what food can provide – a healthy body, healthy mind and social connection. To move from a situation of just surviving to absolutely thriving!!

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A food fight for Foodbank. No really, we’re not kidding!

Yes. Kids across Victoria are flinging food* to fundraise for Foodbank (phew… try saying that three times fast)!

*No ACTUAL food has been harmed of course. This term, more than 135 schools are piffing and sloshing fake food as they take part in our brand new, feelgood fundraising day called Food Fight.

There’s nothing like mess, fun and slime to get kids excited about raising funds for a good cause!

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