Hall Constructions’ Peter Hall donates permanent home to Sunshine Coast charity Urban Angels Community Kitchen

A growing Sunshine Coast community kitchen will be able to help provide 5000 extra meals each month to those in need thanks to the generosity of a well-known businessman. WATCH THE VIDEO

A chance conversation led a Coast businessman to buy and donate a purposely designed forever home that will allow a community kitchen to cook 5,000 more meals a month for those in need.

Peter Hall of Hall Constructions bought a recently developed two-storey industrial space that with the help of many Sunshine Coast businesses was transformed into a commercial kitchen and donated to Urban Angels Community Kitchen Program.

Mr Hall said he had never heard of the Urban Angels until a “chance conversation”.

“I had a conversation with my accountant about a good local charity I could maybe support as I step back from work and she had a friend that was volunteering (with Urban Angels) and so I went to Nambour and I was very impressed with all the volunteers giving their time and energy to feed and help people who are disadvantage or homeless,” he said.

“I was glad to give them a permanent home … (and) it's very satisfying to see it all.”

Mr Hall collaborated with Urban Angels and local business Hillers Kitchen Hospitality & Commercial Kitchen Design Sunshine Coast to fit out the premise with a state of the art kitchen.

Mr Hall said he was just at a stage in his life where things had come together and he was able to help.

Peter Hall of Hall Constructions (left) and Birgit Sowden outside Urban Angels Community Kitchen Program's new home. Picture: Laura Pettigrew.

Urban Angels Community Kitchen manager Birgit Sowden said the new space will make an enormous difference and improve the community kitchen’s efficiency by at least 50 per cent.

“We do a mac and cheese which is a very popular dish with children and the sauce previously took up to two hours on the stove, but in our new home it takes about 15 to 20 minutes,” she said.

“The increased efficiency (means) we will be able to support more people with more food.”

Run by IFYS, the not-for-profit organisation provides a platform for bringing the community together to create a ready stock of tasty, nutritious frozen meals made from scratch for those families and individuals in need.

A host of local businesses were involved in creating the space.

Kunda Park’s Pac Food donated two freezers, Garry Crick provided a delivery van, OzHarvest and Veef supplies regular produce and Dave Lyons from Chef Tech donates his maintenance services.

Mrs Sowden said without the wonderful community support Urban Angels wouldn’t be able to provide 10,000 meals to hungry locals each month.

“It’s an all community effort to do what we do, it’s not just one person or a small group of people,” she said.

She said she was immensely grateful to Mr Hall, who had been donating to the charity for years.

“In additional to his exceptional financial generosity Peter’s engineering, design and project management background were invaluable to this project, he quickly grasped what we needed and … made the concept a physical and highly function reality,” she said.

“Nothing was ever too hard for him.”

Located on Service Street in Maroochydore the new Urban Angels headquarters was officially opened on Saturday.