Charity organisation Foodbank Australia is supporting communities affected by the ongoing bushfire crisis. It is acting as a conduit in the food and grocery sector and the public who are donating essential supplies to the disaster stricken areas.
Foodbank is delivering supplies to when and where they are mostly needed to support the country’s relief efforts. It partnered with several national donors all year round to deliver food and grocery items to over 2400 charities. The organisation said the donors have stepped up efforts to give additional support by donating products and funds for bushfire-affected communities in Australia.
“We have been overwhelmed by the generosity from loyal supporters, national donors, the general public and community organisations over the past few days who have all rallied behind the entire Foodbank network to ensure we can get essential food and grocery items to the thousands of Aussies caught up in this horrible bushfire disaster,” Foodbank
Australia CEO, Brianna Casey, said.
She said they have provided Foodbank daily with food and groceries to help the organisation support over 815,000 Australians every month who are undergoing food insecurity.
“Now, they’ve answered our cries for help and stepped up to provide additional support,” Casey said.
For the past year, Foodbank’s donors have given donations during natural disasters such as drought in NSW and Queensland; Queensland floods and bushfires in both NSW and Queensland before Christmas. She said they couldn’t do it without their support.
Foodbank donors include major FMCG brands such as Fonterra, Saputo and
Parmalat, Coca-Cola Amatil, SunRice, P&G products, Rinoldi, PZ Cussons, Kimberly Clark Australia (Huggies), Nu-Pure Beverages, Ashai, Sanitarium, SPC, Murray River Organics, Freedom Foods, Unilever, Henkel, Campbell Arnott’s and Mars Masterfoods.
“We have also been blown away by our national partners such as ALDI, Usana, Oporto, Nando and many others who have committed funds which will allow us to purchase food and groceries for emergency relief. We’re also working with retailers such as Coles, who are donating and transporting pallets of food and groceries items to the front line,” said Casey.
Food and grocery relief are distributed in Victoria with 3,000 mixed grocery hampers which feed a family of four for up to seven days. Foodbank said it contains over than 31,000 kg on 72 pallets, 1000+ packs of toiletries and sanitary items, bulk pallet loads of water (about 100 ready to go into an area that only has boiled water to drink).
Foodbank South Australia also filled a truck going to Kangaroo Island, with three pallets of emergency relief hampers, two pallets of bottled water and two pallets of mixed food and groceries. It also deployed a mobile food pantry to Lobethal in SA. Foodbank NSW & ACT sent 28 pallets of food, groceries and water to the south coast, with another convoy of food relief on the road now.
“We honestly cannot thank our National Donors, supporters, partners and, of course, the big-hearted general public enough. The support we have received at all our warehouses in the past few days has been overwhelmingly and we greatly appreciate it. Foodbank will continue
to support these communities over the long term to ensure they get back on their feet. To make this happen, we will have to rely on the generous support from corporate and the general public. For any corporate or business wishing to donate food or funds, please reach out to our team. We sincerely thank each and every one of you,” Casey said.
