The Philanthropic Collective

The hills are alive with the sound of music...

Get excited for the 2024 Hilltop Music Festival, featuring a variety of homegrown and popular Melbourne talent, including triple Aria award-nominated and multi-award-winning artists.

This tremendous family-friendly festival sees money raised donated to Monbulk College to grow the next generation of musical talent.
Grab your tickets and merch and be there on Sunday, September 15.

https://events.humanitix.com/2024-hilltop-music-festival

Thank you to the Hilltop committee for donating tickets to this event to recipients of our programs. All tickets have been snapped up with joy and gratitude.

A change is coming…

Following a lengthy process to change our charity subtype a Law Interpretation Officer has been assigned to our application. The application has now been completed, and we await the next phase of the process towards a DRG (Deductible Gift Recipient) status.

Application to change charity subtype complete.
Charity Name: The Philanthropic Collective
ABN: 80460105311
Reference Number: CAS-1395158-M5F3M8

If you are a business or a contractor with an ABN and wish to donate towards our projects, you can do so as a sponsorship with a tax-deductible receipt issued.

Rescued by the Logs…

As the damaging winds have finally passed heating homes with fires as the only form of heating for many can resume. Having no power or generator in many cases translates to a significant challenge to keep warm, particularly with young children.

We are so very grateful to Julia Hall and her team from Rescue Logs Inc for once again reaching out with another lifeline of support.

A trailer load of easy to manage dry firewood, split and ready to heat homes was delivered to our distribution point today at TPC volunteer Suzanne O’Connor’s property.

The resource is kept dry with collection picks ups by the community managed by Suzanne.

Thank you, Suzanne, for all the time taken to help load cars with wood and offer a friendly smile to those collecting. Huge thanks to Julia and the team which work extremely hard to split wood, gather it and deliver it.

We certainly are a blessed community.

Rescue Logs Inc can always welcome some extra helping hands. If this sounds like you, please connect at [email protected] or by heading to their website, www.rescuelogs.org.

A ripper Halloween site.

Halloween on the Green site is now live!

We want to thank Dean Jenkin, Director of RipperWebsites, and Hills Local for bringing our vision of a stunning and aptly Halloween-themed website to life.

We couldn’t be happier!
Dean has committed many days and weeks to delivering a platform integral to our event's success. We greatly appreciate his patience and value his expertise in this field.

If anyone reading this is looking to create a new website, we couldn’t recommend Dean highly enough. You can get in touch with Dean via the contact page on his website here www.ripperwebsites.com

Click below to check out our site, which has all the information you need for our Halloween on the Green event. We can't wait to see you there.
https://halloweenonthegreen.com.au/

The Month that was August…

The month that was August has been dominated by Mother Nature and unprecedented weather conditions. We have experienced possibly the hottest winter on record, proceeded by destructive winds. The persistent wind places all of us Hills dwellers on edge as it triggers our emotions connected back to the Storm Event which so devastated our patch of paradise.

Managing free food program days with high winds has been a significant challenge as we placed safety at the top of our priority. All routes to collecting produce and returning it back to Olinda Hall HQ are tree lined. It is without question that we do not place our volunteers or recipients in vulnerable situations when collecting.

Endless consultation with each other whilst navigating the BOM to find a clear timeframe window to collect produce and distribute it has been tricky.

We only imagine as the climate continues to breakdown that this may just be the beginning. We have turned our minds to the best way forward in creating a new strategy to combat how we best maintain the levels of service delivery support, collecting and distributing produce around extreme weather conditions.

Adding to the complexity remains factoring in donated fresh produce to be gathered as it has commenced its natural process of breaking down. At a time when we face a cost-of-living crisis, requiring produce more than ever, finding a workable solution to save it from landfill and doing it safely will be paramount.

A perfect storm of events to overcome in real time for real people.

As we came to the months end, mostly exhausted from a lack of sleep from the winds roar, we also had the challenge of volunteers and community continuing to be struck by a burgeoning list of illnesses. COVID, bacterial pneumonia and a strain of contagious whooping cough started to emerge. Mostly via our children and grand children through schools and invariably back to our homes.

Mask wearing at our free food programs for volunteers is now commonplace and we thank all our volunteers and recipients which have notified us in advance of falling ill, testing and remaining off site until well once again.

Our Foodbank Victoria account had its usual full workout with maximum orders placed by our own Kevin Swalling each week.

Supporting us as always have been the wonderful team of volunteers from Outer East Foodshare which collect our pallet from Foodbanks Dandenong warehouse and leg it back to Olinda. We thank all the teams from OEF for their kind-hearted dedication over the month and particularly Kevin for meeting with them to help unload the delivery and repack our storeroom.

Prioritising families to fairly share stock limits on certain staples of produce has continued as the most effective way to have the most reach. Single parent families with small children and families with children remain our current priority and we thank all our recipients for their understanding.

Hands of help a plenty has reduced our worktimes by many hours. We are such a well-oiled machine with all volunteers quietly going about what needs to be done in their usual good grace and generous spirits.

This loving energy permeates throughout the Hall which in turns provides for a welcoming environment to all.

It never feels like a free food program, rather, a gathering of community which knows and feels safe, respected and cared for. If we do nothing else, we have succeeded in lifting each other’s spirits with a bonus gift of care boxes of produce.

Thank you to all our volunteers and recipients for coming together in support of each other. Sharing a tale and our trademark of having a good belly laugh over a hot cuppa and homemade cake is social connectedness doing its thing in spades.

Keeping us all jolly has been the return of our beloved Patron, Noel Cliff. If he is not climbing aboard his ute returning a mountain of flat pack creates, he is all steam ahead filling care boxes with produce.

In his young 80’s Noel brings his beautiful energy to us all and keeps us on our toes with a good old-fashioned laugh. Thanks to Jess for accompanying Noel in returning creates back to Aldi.

Special thanks Jennifer Sykes and Casey Pipinis for operating our third program day and for repacking the storeroom each Wednesday evening.

Produce gathering across the month of August continued with our produce partners listed below and our awesome volunteers which gave of their time to do so.

Major supporting partners Aldi Monbulk, Bayswater, Ferntree Gully, Seville, and Woolworths Monbulk.
Principal partners, Mount Wholefoods - Mount Dandenong - (Whole Community), Proserpina Bakehouse. All Mount Wholefoods goods go directly into our weekly produce boxes while all Proserpina goods collected and delivered by Roslyn Champion, Suzanne O’Conner, Rita Symes and Fabian and Andrew Fillip-Gautier.

We continue to share our Foodbank supplies with Tecoma Uniting Church weekly along with any extra produce supplies of fruit, bread and bakery items across any given week.
Thank you to Theresa & son Jonty Evans who collect from Aldi each Friday and deliver to the free food pantry at Tecoma Uniting Church.

Over supplies of bread and bakery items made their way to Monbulk Collage, Sassafras, Mount Dandenong and Ferny Creek Primary Schools along with Sherbrooke Community School and Upwey South Pre-school to support free breakfast clubs.

Phillip Heading collected all our compost for gardening matter across the month as well as supplying extra produce to Monbulk agencies.

Thanks to Andrew Fillip-Gautier for opening Olinda Hall on Sundays to set up for Monday programs while supporting the Sunday families with produce for those which work all week and are unable to attend program days.

Special mention of thanks to the below for extra door-to-door deliveries and collections from local eateries.
Maureen Dean, Lucy Murray, Mel Boxell, Kim Springfield, Suzanne O’Connor, Rosalind Mackay, Roslyn 2 Champion, Fabian & Andrew Fillip-Gautier, Phillip Heading and Rita Symes.

The usual suspects are listed below:

Lenora Locatelli, Lisa & Jack England, Rowan Davidson, Jen Sykes, Casey & Jared Pipinis, Sue & Bruce Tardif, Julie Ripper, Jess, Marg and Keith Rae, Jeff & Di Cremean, Kevin Swalling & Rita Symes, John Druiven for collecting from Aldi Seville, Keith Tindall, Jim Green and Vincent Bovo.

Food we are banking on…

One critical component of service delivery to our free food programs remains our Foodbank Victoria account. Access to Foodbank ensures that we can offer our programs basic staple items such as rice, pasta, and even toilet paper.

It comes as no surprise to any of us that demand for food relief has skyrocketed, and we've all been inundated with requests for more food.

Foodbank Victoria is now feeding more people than ever before. In addition to the food that's been donated, they have spent $5 million this year on purchasing extra food to try and meet the demand. And it's still not enough.

Almost without exception, every charity partner they work with is helping more people who need more food. As the demand has grown, so has the limit on what we can purchase.

This poses an ongoing and significant challenge as we are finding more often a perfect storm of circumstances resulting in less and less produce to purchase or collect.

We are so very grateful to Foodbank Victoria and their incredible team, Outer East Foodshare for collecting our weekly pallet and to all the community members who drop off all sorts of extra produce.

If you can donate anything from homegrown gardens, please consider sharing with us.

Donations can be made at Olinda Hall every Monday and Wednesday morning from 09:00 am to 10:30 am.

At our Best Together...

What does the acronym YRERN stand for? It stands for the Yarra Ranges Emergency Relief Network, of which we are proud members.

YRERN members are made up of many local agencies, comprising approximately 60 members, offering a wide range of services to the community of the Yarra and Dandenong Ranges.

Of those organisations, approximately 35 provide dedicated food relief services - running food pantries and/or community meals - or provide the logistics of distributing rescued food.

Working collaboratively to support each other and the community is our true strength. We share resources, contacts, queries, or just sage advice. Throughout the COVID-19 lockdown era, this was never more prevalent, with rapid responses offering material support to one another in real time.

It is a special bond to share the same ethos of community caregiving without it being transactional.

We thank all our counterparts for creating the space to share our common principles in support of each other’s work across the community we share.

One for Oli…

We have shared in their joy and sorrow as we take a moment to share a message from two of the loveliest people to grace our doors at Olinda Hall.

My name is Hayden. My partner Pip and I are raising funds to honour what would be our son Oli’s first birthday this coming October.

Oli was born still, and at peace, and since then, we have been supported by so many generous services, including The Philanthropic Collective food program.

Pip and I are currently running a fundraising effort for Bears of Hope. We aim to raise $6,500 for an organisation that provides vital support for families who experience the loss of a baby.

Please see the link below if you have an interest and the financial capacity and wish to donate to our cause.

https://cuddlecot.gofundraise.com.au/page/CuddleCotinHonourofOliLyons-Smee

Yarra Valley Water never tasted so good.

In keeping with our zero plastic festival at Halloween on the Green 24 we are pleased at announce that through the generosity of Yarra Valley Water we will have free hydartion stations at the event. This will mean no plastic bottles of water will be on sale and festival goers can refill there own water bottles as many time as they need.

We are very grateful to Yarra Valley Water for supporting this initiative which carryed an expense for us to provide.

Special thanks to Christine Ng - Program Officer, Campaigns and Programs at Yarra Valley Water for facilitating this resource to the community.

The Hills are Alive with Kindness.

The Hills own Tati Carlin created a stunning dish of delight for our Free Food Program this week. Tati supplied our program with freshly cooked pot loads of Indonesian Mie Goreng stir fry noodles made with love. Tati also supplied most of the ingredients at her own expense which were shared across seniors and single mum families with children.

Many of you would know Tati as a contestant on MasterChef Australia Season 11, but we all know her for her beautiful heart and generous community spirit.

In her grace Tati did not want us to mention anything, however, we felt it important to acknowledge and share the love.

Thank you, Tati, and thank you Suzanne O’Conner for collecting and delivering the gastronomic delights.

Our Special Guest Volunteer Returns.

It is that time again when we welcome back our very special guest volunteer, Janet Paxton. Janet makes the trek all the way from Bacchus Marsh by train to Olinda. Arriving on Friday, Janet spends time with her family and pops in to help us with the Free Food Program before heading home.

Janet’s work ethic is unstoppable, creating care boxes of produce right up until recipients arrive and supporting the clean-up and pack away.

Thank you, Janet, we love that you bring your loving energy from Bacchus Marsh and leave it behind in our Hills.

Super Clean…

At the free food program, we take hygiene and cleanliness very seriously ensuring that our community care boxes are clean and presented with dignity. This approach is extended to our surroundings with the exterior of Olinda Hall blowvaced to perfection for safe access matching the cleanliness of the hall interior.

Our commercial and domestic refrigeration units are routinely cleaned which is quite a job in of itself. Thank you to Rowan Davidson (pictured) for pulling apart our units and giving them a complete once over and all our team for being so diligent in creating a welcoming and safe space. All completed at no charge with ‘good will’ as our currency.

Bringing You More in 24 for Halloween.

As we move through August, we turn our attention towards securing some of the many and varied participants who make Halloween what it is.

Life Blood…

What would Halloween on the Green be without the perfect infusion of long-time supporters from the Australian Red Cross. The Life Blood team headed by Elle Giles (pictured) - Regional Partnerships - Donor Engagement & Experience will again be at the site, playing a huge part in the day.

Every 18 seconds, someone in Australia needs a blood donation. The festival provides an opportunity for Lifeblood to have a presence within the broader community of the Dandenong Ranges, offering information, education, and clear pathways to becoming a donor.

Ferny Creek Food Drive…

When Ferny Creek Primary School student Evie Sloane approached us with her initiative to organise a food drive, we were only too happy to accept.

Evie, a grade six student, went to work with the support of her mother, Karen, to create branded collection points within the school. In an overwhelming level of support, the school community donated staple products en-masse to offer to our free food programs.

Our thanks to acting principal, Kelly Jacob for facilitating Evie’s initiative at the school level and our very own Jen Skyes for ensuring distribution.

The future looks bright with students like Evie and the wider school community supporting each other. Our thanks to all.

The slow turn to DGR application…

Our application to change our charity subtype remains in the queue with lengthy delays in assessing applications. This is due to the unprecedented number of applications received.

The next phase of the application will be allocation to a Law Interpretation Analyst which will involve direct contact for further information should they require it to support in decision making.

Currently, applications are taking up to 12 weeks for allocation.

If you are a business or a contractor with an ABN and wish to donate towards our projects, you can do so as a sponsorship with a tax deductable receipt issued.

The Month that was July…

The month that was July has fallen into three distinct characteristics to manage, weather, illness and unprecedented demand.

Across the month it has been cold, windy and super wet. Chill factors on the Ridge Top a challenge to navigate with deliveries and collections. Thankfully Olinda Hall heats up quickly and our trusty crew blowvacc the exterior to create a clean and clear point of entry.

Our successful Yarra Ranges Council - Grants for Community application included the purchase of slip mats at all entrances has never been so welcomed ensuring safe passage in and out of the hall. We remain hyper vigilant around our safe entry points as it wouldn’t take much to go flying, especially with produce boxes and seniors entering with wet feet. Anyone for that matter could easily come to grief.

As the month progressed as did the many community members continuing to be struck by a myriad of illnesses, mostly contagious, with COVID-19 and bacterial pneumonia the main culprits currently circulating. We thank all our volunteers and recipients which have notified us in advance of falling ill, testing, mask wearing and remaining off site until well once again.

This level of co-operation and understanding is very impressive and allows us to continue service delivery of our programs unimpeded.

As we are all to painfully aware gathering recued produce from across our many partnerships remains a hit and miss proposition. We gather from so many sites each week in the hope that we create a sustainable level of balanced care boxes of produce offered back to the community.

Thankfully through the support of Outer East Foodshare Sunday collections we have been well positioned to supply a decent level of fresh fruit, vegetables and bakery items accompanied by staples. Unfortunately, Wednesday program days, now our biggest day, still has a significant shortfall of produce.

We thank all the crew at OEF for opening to us on a Sunday and for collecting our weekly pallet of produce from Foodbank Victoria each week.

Special thanks to our Sunday volunteers and to our very own Kevin Swalling for opening up Olinda Hall each Friday. This arduous task is repeated twice each Friday to remove all infrastructure from the storeroom to create the space to restock produce and repack.

As the month progressed as did yet more new faces to welcome to our programs. Each with a story to tell of the many hardships faced from homelessness to just having enough food to place on tables for children and grandchildren.

We continue to prioritise families and stock limits on certain staples to share our produce in the most effective way with the most reach. Single parent families with small children and families with children remain our current priority.

It has been heartening to have so many incredible volunteers all lending a hand on program days. Every week we have upwards of 14 extra pairs of hands reducing program running times significantly.

It translates into further one-on-one care giving to recipients, particularly to new recipients. New recipients are lovingly supported through our collection process which is never easy first-time round as people don’t know what to expect. By week two all have been made so welcomed that any residual preconceived notions have dissipated.

The beauty of all our volunteers is the coming together at the end to share a yarn and laugh over a hot cuppa or homemade cake. It is another level of social connection we all look forward to sharing in.

Special thanks Jennifer Sykes and Casey Pipinis for operating our third program day and for repacking the storeroom each Wednesday evening.

Produce gathering across the month of July continued with our produce partners listed below and the wonderful volunteers which gave of their time to do so.

Major supporting partners Aldi Monbulk, Bayswater, Ferntree Gully, Seville, and Woolworths Monbulk.

Principal partners, Mount Wholefoods - Mount Dandenong - (Whole Community), Proserpina Bakehouse. All Mount Wholefoods goods go directly into our weekly produce boxes while all Proserpina goods collected and delivered by Roslyn Champion, Suzanne O’Conner, Rita Symes and Fabian and Andrew Fillip-Gautier.

We continue to share our Foodbank supplies with Tecoma Uniting Church weekly along with any extra produce supplies of fruit, bread and bakery items across any given week.

Thank you to the amazing duo of Theresa & Jonty Evans who collect from Aldi each Friday and deliver to the free food pantry at Tecoma Uniting Church.

Over supplies of bread and bakery items made their way to Monbulk Collage, Sassafras, Mount Dandenong and Ferny Creek Primary Schools along with Sherbrooke Community School. Upwey South Pre-school enjoyed a supply of Wheaties to support their free breakfast clubs.

Phillip Heading collected all our compost for gardening matter across the month as well as supplying extra produce to Monbulk agencies.

Thanks to Andrew Fillip-Gautier for opening Olinda Hall on Sundays to set up for Monday programs while supporting the Sunday families with produce for those which work all week and are unable to attend program days.

Special mention of thanks to the below for extra door-to-door deliveries and collections from local eateries.

Maureen Dean, Lucy Murray, Mel Boxell, Kim Springfield, Suzanne O’Connor, Rosalind Mackay, Roslyn 2 Champion, Fabian & Andrew Fillip-Gautier, Phillip Heading and Rita Symes.

Welcome to new recruits Keith Tindall, Jim Green and Vincent Bovo.

The usual suspects are listed below:

Lenora Locatelli, Lisa & Jack England, Rowan Davidson, Jen Sykes, Casey & Jared Pipinis, Sue & Bruce Tardif, Julie Ripper, Jess, Marg and Keith Rae, Jeff & Di Cremean, Kevin Swalling & Rita Symes, Coco Collins and John Druiven for collecting from Aldi Seville.

Rescue Logs to the Rescue.

Winter is certainly upon us, with icy cold temperatures and many rainy days. Heating homes is never an easy task, with many reverting to rugging up to save money on heating bills while others forage for firewood.

We have gratefully received a trailer load of dry wood, split and ready to burn in manageable logs from the amazing team of volunteers at Rescue Logs Inc., headed by the equally amazing Julia Hall.

Julia and her trusty team have worked tirelessly to create this life-saving gift for the many recipients of our free food programs who rely on firewood as their only heating source. The firewood is being shared across our programs, with home deliveries to our seniors and collection by many single-parent families.

Suzanne O’Conner has generously opened her property to support housing the wood for collection, ensuring it is kept dry.

This is a huge effort by many with a common bond of ‘goodwill’ toward those who need an extra hand of support over winter.

Thank you, Suzanne, and a huge thank you to Rescue Logs for providing a means to heat for many. You are making a real difference in the lives of our community kids and seniors at a time when sharing kindness has never been so important.

If you would like to join the team at Rescue Logs Inc., you can do so by connecting with Julia Hall at [email protected] or by heading to their website, rescuelogs.org.

Captain with many hats…

A huge congratulations to one of our biggest supporter, Deb Weber, on her recently elected appointment as Olinda Rural Fire Brigade's new Captain. The appointment was voted by all members of the Brigade and makes way for a new era at Olinda under Deb’s watch.

Deb’s appointment speaks volumes to her dedication to our community. She joined the Kalorama-Mount Dandenong Brigade in 2014.

We all know and love Deb in her role as Chair of Dandenong Ranges Community Bank Group. When time allows, she always offers an extra hand as a volunteer at our free food programs and as a judge of best dressed at Halloween on the Green.

Hats off to you, Deb. We wish you well in your new role, and we offer our sincere thanks for all you do for our little charity in the hills and the broader community.

FREE live music event on 11th July " NAIDOC celebration with ‘Art therapy’ session and a live performance from Zak Gully"
You are all welcome to come and Celebrate NAIDOC week 2024 at " YOUR SPACE Art Therapy & Live Music" in Ringwood.
See flyer below for more information and registration via the QR code.
When: Thursday the 11th of July 2024
Time: 3 pm – 5 pm
Where: EACH 9 Greenwood Ave, Ringwood
Activities include:
• Mindfulness space and Indigenous colouring
• Paint your own photo frame
• Clay play space
• Arts and crafts room
• Pool table

This week celebrates and recognises the history, culture and achievements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, while sharing these histories and oldest, continuous living cultures with all Australians. The 2024 theme is Keep the fire burning!

National Reconciliation Week

The National NAIDOC Committee has announced NAIDOC Week celebrations will be Held across the country from 7-14 July 2024, NAIDOC Week will celebrate and recognise the history, culture and achievements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

The National NAIDOC Committee chose Keep the Fire Burning! Blak, Loud & Proud as this year's theme.

The theme honours the enduring strength and vitality of First Nations culture, with fire symbolizing connection to Country, to each other, and to the rich tapestry of traditions that define Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

First Nations communities, registered businesses, schools and local governments are all encouraged to apply for funding to run an activity or event that directly relates to the 2024 NAIDOC theme including:
• arts-based activities, including painting, dancing, crafts and storytelling.
• family fun days and community activities.
• cultural and Elders activities.
• NAIDOC-themed sporting activities or competitions, or
• activities that actively promote Reconciliation.

Held from 7 – 14 July 2024.

This week celebrates and recognises the history, culture and achievements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, while sharing these histories and oldest, continuous living cultures with all Australians. The 2024 theme is Keep the fire burning!

Aldi to the rescue …

Meat, meat, meat is back on the menu for our free food programs after a suspension first introduced in February. Five long months later, a resolution was finally found, with recent changes to the freezing meat process for food rescue at ALDI stores.

Food rescue process at ALDI
ALDI’s Food Rescue Program provides quality surplus food to food relief organisations and aims to redistribute valuable surplus to people who need it most. We are extremely grateful for this.

Updates to Food Rescue process
ALDI has changed the date labelling for certain meat product lines from Use by Date to Best Before Date. This enables the donation of these product lines to restart. To ensure fresh meat can be donated safely, ALDI will hard freeze meat products on their best-before date and offer these to food rescue participants the following day.

Hallelujah! Consider for a moment the commercial process that takes place. Animals are reared, sent to Abattoir, packaged, and transported, only to end up in landfills due to labelling issues. Something is terribly wrong for an entire cycle to end in landfills!

We commend Aldi for the measures taken to ensure meat surplus is once again available. This will make a significant difference to the lives of so many where meat is a commodity that many go without due to cost constraints on household budgets.

The Month that was June…

The month that was June would incorporate the King’s birthday public holiday and just as well, for it provided for a King’s banquet of over ordered produce from stakeholder partners. That was where the feast ended, as we oscillated between famine levels over the course of the month.

Unprecedented demand across all sectors in this space remains under extreme pressure whilst we moved forward to gathering what produce was available. There is never a constant as any consistency of supply produce is evaporated even at traditional sources. Enabling us to produce community care boxes with enough balance between fresh fruit and vegetables accompanied by staples is our reality at this time.

We are rapidly approaching capacity as demand out strips supply. Since our inception, in 2016, we have never had to turn anyone in need away and this remains our policy position. We will always undertake to offer all that we have to anyone in need albeit, at a limited amount.

This month we have had to prioritise families to share our produce in the most effective way with the most reach. Single parent families with small children and families with children are our current priority. We have also for the very first time introduced limits on our stapes to create a wider pool of access.

As the month moved on as did what seemed a sudden drop in temperature. Morning programs taking a little longer to get us all moving from the cold but once ignited our volunteers quickly swing into each other’s well-trodden routines. Olinda Hall HQ quickly transforms into a hive of activity, boxes are marked for individuals by name and number to each household, care boxes are filled with incoming collections while our staples moveable shelves are lovingly stacked. All to the sweet sounds of laughter and background music.

Before we know it a rush of folks blow in, gather produce, often with a hug and an ear to share tales and it is all over. We have so many wonderful volunteers at hand that we are now able to complete our program days by 10:20am. It wasn’t that long ago that the same small group would take until 14:30 to complete programs days, deliveries and be just in time to collect children from school. How far we have come with so many wonderful volunteers offering extra hands.

Unfortunately, as the month progressed as did the many community members continuing to be struck by COVID or the flu. It seems we are never far from the clear and we thank all our volunteers and recipients alike for mask wearing at program site.

Our Foodbank Victoria account has been maxed-out each week purchasing up to the limit. Thank you to Kevin Swalling for ordering and this month collecting directly from Foodbank to ensure extra supplies. It is without question that without the support of Outer East Foodshare volunteers collecting our Foodbank pallet and delivering it back to Olinda HQ weekly we would not be able to offer the extent of produce we do. Our thanks and gratitude to all.

As we are so busy with service delivery the dream of an independent space remains just that, a dream. Eating away at our energy levels and recalibrating our fucus towards the allusive independent space quickly falls off the radar. None of us simply have the time to be constantly dedicated to try and make this happen.

Volunteers, recipients, stakeholders all rightly ask why this continues to take so long, why is this not something championed by those that can create the difference in an overcrowded landscape of competing priorities.

The more boarder question is why do community organisations such as ours which are recognised for there contribution and work be required to agitate to be heard? Is it necessary to scream from the mountain tops to action what is recognised as a genuine requirement, which if commenced today would realistically not come to fruition for years. We will continue to lobby.

Special thanks Jennifer Sykes and Casey Pipinis for operating our third program day and for repacking the storeroom each Wednesday evening. Super thanks go out to Kevin Swalling for emptying out our storeroom each Friday morning and repacking it Friday evening after our Foodbank delivery.

Over the month volunteers Sarah Roberts and Lenora Locatelli collected produce from OEFS on Sunday’s and delivered back at Olinda Hall to sure up our Monday program. Our sincere thanks to them for giving us there time away from families on a Sunday. Thank you to Emma Tucker from OEFS for also taking time from her family to facilitate the Sunday collections.

Produce gathering across the month of June continued with our produce partners listed below and the wonderful volunteers which gave of their time to do so.

Major supporting partners Aldi Monbulk, Bayswater, Ferntree Gully, Seville, and Woolworths Monbulk.

Principal partners, Mount Wholefoods - Mount Dandenong - (Whole Community), Proserpina Bakehouse. All Mount Wholefoods goods go directly into our weekly produce boxes while all Proserpina goods collected and delivered by Roslyn Champion, Lucy Murray, Jen Sykes, Rita Symes and Fabian and Andrew Fillip-Gautier.

All and any extra produce supplies of fruit, bread and bakery items made their way to our friends at Tecoma Uniting Church’s free food pantry across any given week. Our dedicated Friday Aldi produce delivery team, Theresa & Jonty Evans, collected exclusively for TUC each week across the month with some slim picking weeks.

Over supplies of bread made their way to Monbulk Collage, Sassafras, Mount Dandenong and Ferny Creek Primary Schools along with Sherbrooke Community School and Upwey South Pre-school with fruit and bakery items supporting free breakfast clubs.

Phillip Heading collected all our compost for gardening matter across the month.

Special guest volunteers this month included the lovely Janet Paxton making her sabbatical trek from Bacchus Marsh and Louise Price from Le Pine Funerals both offering a loving hand.

Maureen Dean, Lucy Murray, Mel Boxell, Kim Springfield, Suzanne, and Chris O’Connor, Rosalind Mackay, Roslyn 2 Champion, Fabian & Andrew Fillip-Gautier, Phillip Heading and Rita Symes.

The usual suspects are listed below:
Patron Noel Cliff, Rain White, Lenora Locatelli, Lisa & Jack England, Rowan Davidson, Sarah Roberts, Jen Sykes, Casey & Jared Pipinis, Sue & Bruce Tardif, Julie Ripper, Jess, Marg and Keith Rae, Jeff & Di Cremean, Kevin & Rita Symes, and John Druiven for collecting from Aldi Seville.