To help ease the financial strain felt by families during lockdown, our Community Services Team have been delivering hampers of food to the doorsteps of residents in Eden, Bega and along the NSW South Coast.
The project initially started as a way to keep in touch with families in our Reconnect program with the team creating activity bags filled with games and items to help youth and children pass the time while social distancing measures were in full force.
When we went into lockdown, we wanted to find another way to help. We thought, what can we do to keep in touch with people? Dennis Scott, Operations Manager Indigenous, Youth and Family Services.
The team saw more and more families that had lost work because of Coronavirus and decided to ramp up their efforts and put together and deliver hampers filled with nutritious food to supplement or replace weekly grocery shops.
Deliveries were extended to additional families with the team linking up with Bega Valley Primary school to deliver 14 hampers to families in their school community.
People are responding well. They’re really happy to receive them which is so great to see said Dennis.
NSW South Coast locals and small businesses have done it tough this year, with Coronavirus coming right off the back of the bushfires, so it was important to the team that they put back into the community and supported their local shops.
It was important to us to buy local and support local. Everything in the activity packs and the food we’ve organised has been sourced through local businesses so we can see the money come back into our community said Dennis
Big thanks to Sapphire Community Pantry and Eden Community Pantry as well as a range of local businesses for helping out with food, games, art equipment, stationery and other items that went into the activity packs and food hampers.
The team is working with the local community to identify more families that would like to receive a food hamper or activity pack.
