Northern: Feed Melbourne grant
Feed Melbourne cash helps meet growing hunger pains
MAKING ends meet is getting harder for charities devoted to stamping out hunger, such as Preston’s Northern Community Church of Christ, which is making every dollar count.
Program co-ordinator Cheryl Johnson said demand had grown so much the organisation was serving about 250 lunches a week, compared with about 150 a year ago.
That demand has made even more invaluable a $6000 cash injection from the 2011 Feed Melbourne campaign, which will enable the service to replace the trailer it uses to pick up ingredients from Food Bank Victoria’s Yarraville warehouse.
“It’s wonderful news that we’ve got this money because our old trailer is about to fall apart,” Ms Johnson said.
She said a trailer would cost $5000, with the remaining $1000 to go towards a new meal delivery service for people who were too ill to cook.
Feed Melbourne raised $530,000 this year, double the amount raised in 2010.
The money was donated by Leader readers, local businesses and charitable organisations. The Lord Mayor’s Charitable Foundation matched donations up to a total of $250,000.
The campaign was founded by Leader Community Newspapers and food charity FareShare.
