Beachside Communicare Inc, the community arm of Beachside Church Pottsville, has opened a community food pantry in Pottsville.
The group, mainly dependent on funds provided by its membership, has already been instrumental in helping the local community by supplying food parcels, meals for the sick and helping people in crisis.
Recognising a great need, they have been working tirelessly in the past year to get the Community Food Pantry underway and, after much behind the scenes planning, they opened the Community Food Pantry at the Pottsville Beach Neighbourhood Centre on Wednesday of this week.
Vanie Pillay, a Pastor at Beachside Church said that this program, given the logistics involved, is challenging.
“Yet it is also exciting as we seek to serve our community in a very practical way and hopefully we can expand our help to those who are really in need,” Vanie said.
The purpose of this not for profit weekly program, which is a partnership project with the Pottsville Beach Neighbourhood Centre and Foodbank Australia, is to make basic food items available at a very low cost to those in need.
Most of the recipients will be people with a pension card but others who are genuinely in need will not be denied food items .
At this stage the pilot program is scheduled for once weekly but is subject to further assessment in the future.
Most of the food items will be supplied by Foodbank Australia who collects surplus and donated food and grocery products from farmers, manufacturers, wholesalers, retailers and the public and distributes them to over 2500 charities and community groups around Australia.
The food will be brought down from Foodbank’s Brisbane Warehouse by O’Connors Carrying Services in Murwillumbah, who have sponsored the freight; and received and distributed by Beachside Communicare volunteers .
“Going hungry and scrimping on basics are usually associated with people living in extreme poverty in third world countries,” a Foodbank spokesman said.
“But Australia is not immune to such hardship; in fact, these living conditions are becoming all too common. Each year two million Australians, or one in 10, seek assistance with food – around half of them children. It’s not just traditionally vulnerable people, such as the home-less and unemployed, who are at risk, but also the elderly, single parents and the working poor.
“Over 14 per cent of the Australian population is living in poverty and are susceptible to sudden bill shock, leaving no money for food.”
