Team Foodbank runs Melbourne

Fundraisers young and old braved the cold to run against hunger for Foodbank!

It may have been a chilly mid-winter morning, but that didn’t stop Team Foodbank from turning up the heat at this year’s Run Melbourne event on Sunday, 28 July.

Nearly sixty walkers and runners took to the streets of Melbourne’s CBD to take on the 5km walk/run, 10km run or Half Marathon.

The Foodbank spirit was alive and collectively, more than $10,000 was raised to help vulnerable Victorians through the winter months.

This year, Team Foodbank was joined by fundraisers from all ages. Prep to Year 12 students from Cullen House, St Leonard’s College, sported Foodbank jerseys as they conquered the race around Melbourne, raising more than $850 in the lead up to the event.

Meanwhile the youngest addition to the team, six-year-old Max D’Alessandro, raised more over $1,700 for his first ever Run Melbourne, and alongside his family, completed the 10km run with a proud smile on his face!

It truly was an inspirational day filled with determination, compassion and kindness.

Congratulations and thank you to everyone that joined and supported Team Foodbank for Melbourne’s most anticipated running event of the year!

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Socceroo legend serves up breaky

Students of Campbellfield Public School in Sydney’s south west were treated to a soccer superstar serving them breakfast earlier this month.

Tim Cahill, Weet-Bix Ambassador, attended the breakfast club on a chilly morning before the school bell rang, to help serve Weet-Bix, toast, delicious fresh fruit and hot drinks to 180 local students attending Foodbank NSW & ACT’s School Breakfast 4 Health Program.

Breakfast club has never been so busy or chaotic with children lining up, hoping to be served by the ex-Socceroo striker himself. With breakfast eaten and tummies full ready to start the day, Tim led the assembly with ball juggling and words of inspiration, ‘Make your dreams big and bright, there’s no limit to what you can achieve!’.

More than 1 in 5 Australian children have experienced food insecurity in the last 12 months – right here in our backyard. Foodbank currently supplies 2,600 charities and provides 272,000 school breakfasts a week to more than 132,000 children in 2,000 schools.

Sanitarium, one of Foodbank’s National Donors, provides the iconic cereal in addition to other products to Foodbank School Breakfast programs around the country.

The Foodbank School Breakfast programs operate smoothly thanks to our generous National Donors and state government funding in various states.

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SYDNEY 30 May 2019: Foodbank’s national milk program partners – Parmalat, Lion Dairy & Drinks, Fonterra and Saputo Dairy Australia have collectively received the 2019 Foodbank Award for their collaboration to fight hunger in Australia.

Presented at the Food & Grocery Australia conference dinner held by the Australian Food & Grocery Council (AFCG) in Sydney yesterday, Foodbank praised its dairy partners for the extraordinary collaboration with regular contributions on the production of fresh milk to help Foodbank provide relief to more than 710,000 Australians every month.

Announcing Foodbank’s highest accolade, Foodbank Australia CEO, Brianna Casey, said; “This prestigious award is presented to an AFGC member or members showing vision, innovation and leadership in partnering with Foodbank to deliver greater impact in providing food and groceries to vulnerable families across Australia.

“This year, our dairy partners receive the award for what has proven to be an extraordinary eight-year collaboration providing 1 million litres of fresh milk a year. This industry sector program is unique to Australia and sets a benchmark for foodbank/industry partnerships around the world.

“Without the support of generous partners such as these wonderful milk companies, we would simply not be able to assist the millions of Australians accessing food relief from our network of 2,600 charities around the country.

“Despite facing turbulent industry and market conditions, Parmalat, Lion Dairy & Drinks, Fonterra and Saputo Dairy Australia supply Foodbank with fresh milk in every state and territory each and every week of the year. This allows school students around the country to have milk on their cereal when they sit down at a breakfast club, it enables pensioners to add milk to their cup of tea or coffee at the drop in centre and it provides families with a staple ingredient for meals such as mac and cheese,” Casey explained.

Also on the night, the Flight Centre Foundation’s General Manager, Anita Russell, was inducted into the Foodbank Hall of Fame. Announcing the induction, Casey said: “Anita has been at the centre of the Flight Centre/Foodbank relationship since its inception seven years ago. Not only is it an incredibly valuable partnership for Foodbank but, thanks to Anita, it is the north star of corporate engagement.

“From workplace giving recruitment drives to ‘The World’s Biggest Hamper Pack’, Anita has repeatedly challenged and motivated us and her Flight Centre colleagues to do more and achieve more. No idea has ever been too big or too crazy once Anita her applied her ‘can do’ magic.

“Thanks to her passion and energy, the relationship has gone from strength to strength such that Flight Centre staff and company have funded 8.2 million serves of long life milk as well as 2.4 million serves of pasta sauce, canned fruit and rice,” Casey said.

As a long-standing supporter of Foodbank, the Australian Food and Grocery Council (AFGC) provides a platform for Foodbank to present the Annual Foodbank Award at its premier, annual event, Food and Grocery Australia Dinner. Foodbank thanks the AFGC for allowing it to celebrate Foodbank hunger fighters and congratulates its award recipients.

Foodbank welcomes Labor’s commitment to helping hungry Australians

8 May 2019 – “Foodbank welcomes today’s commitment from Labor to double funding for food relief organisations” Foodbank Australia CEO Brianna Casey said today.

“We have made a case to all parties to deliver a National Food Security Strategy with significant funding to support it, to help address Australia’s food insecurity crisis,” she explained. “We look forward to working with the incoming government to ensure that vulnerable and disadvantaged Australians have reliable access to sufficient safe and nutritious food”.

Foodbank’s case for a National Food Security Strategy can be found here and its policy and funding priorities ahead of the federal election can be found here.

Hunger in Australia an election priority: Foodbank

 

8 April 2019 –Australia’s largest food relief organisation, Foodbank, has called on all sides of politics to ensure vulnerable families – especially those struggling to put food on their tables – are not forgotten in the lead-up to the federal election and beyond.

“This election presents an opportunity for our political leaders to acknowledge that Australia has a hunger problem, and commit to a long-term plan to do something meaningful about it,” Foodbank Australia CEO, Brianna Casey said today.

Foodbank currently provides food relief to more than 710,000 Australians each month, a quarter of whom are under the age of 19. The organisation’s latest research reveals that a startling 4 million Australians experienced food insecurity last year.

“While the circumstances that led them to their situations might be markedly different, what unites food insecure Australians is an overwhelming sense of helplessness” Ms Casey said. “This election presents an opportunity for our political leaders to deliver hope to hungry Australians by uniting on an enduring policy legacy that will benefit generations to come”.

Foodbank has warned that current duelling over tax breaks could distract from the very real problem facing so many Australians right now – uncertainty over where their next meal is coming from and the stigma and shame experienced when sending their children off to school with an empty lunchbox.

“The time has come to stop the short-term, band-aid solutions to hunger in Australia and deliver the country’s first ever National Food Security Strategy,” Ms Casey said. “We want 2019 to be the year we turn a corner as a nation and deliver outcomes capable of ensuring all Australians can live with dignity and have access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food.”

“There is not an electorate in this country that is not touched by food insecurity. It affects families, students, the elderly and people with disabilities. Almost half are employed and, most heartbreaking of all, 22% are children. In fact, children are more likely to be food insecure than adults in Australia today,” she explained.

“There is currently no cohesive federal policy platform or meaningful long-term funding underpinning the goal of individual food security in Australia,” Ms Casey went on to say. “In the absence of government action, we have started the process and call on an election commitment to develop a long-term policy that will ensure zero hunger by 2030.”

Foodbank’s case for a National Food Security Strategy can be found here and its policy and funding priorities ahead of the federal election can be found here.

Foodbank also supports ACOSS and its call to raise Newstart Raise the Rate.

 

1 in 5 Children go hungry in Australia