Fighting Hunger Gets Bigger in QLD With FoodBank Morningside and FareShare Partnership

There are 400,000 Queenslanders each year who experience food insecurity, half of them are children, according to Foodbank. Food relief charities in Queensland are turning away 134 people a month on average and 72 of whom are children, Foodbank says in its 2017 hunger report.

This situation, however, is about to change step by step.

In September 2017, Foodbank Morningside, Australia’s biggest food relief organisation, and FareShare, the country’s largest charity kitchen from Melbourne, signed an agreement to reduce food waste and fight hunger in Queensland.

In January 2018, FareShare has acquired a property at 46 Steel Place in Morningside, where Foodbank Morningside plans to build a kitchen for cooking healthy delicious meals to be given to Queenslanders in need.

The kitchen is expected to be operational within 2018.

Foodbank is distributing more than 35 million kilograms of food and groceries yearly or 172,000 meals a day across Australia. It provides 63 million meals a year to more than 2,600 charities and 1,750 schools in the country.

FareShare, meanwhile, is already cooking 5,000 free meals a day being distributed to soup vans, homeless shelters, women refuges, and community centres across the country.

With the new Morningside kitchen, and the partnership between Foodbank Morningside and FareShare, an additional five million meals a year will be cooked and be distributed for free.

FareShare Queensland general manager Kellie Watson said the Morningside facility was chosen because it is conveniently located near the Brisbane CBD. This ideal location encourages participation from businesses and is more convenient for commuting volunteers.

FareShare will be accepting volunteers for the kitchen in Morningside. Interested individuals can contact them as early as now to be updated on progress.

FareShare also accepts corporate volunteering where employees of companies can do volunteering as group.