One Meal charity feeding people in need amid Sydney lockdown
Sydney’s Covid lockdown has seen the work of charity organisation One Meal become even more important.
NSW
Don't miss out on the headlines from NSW. Followed categories will be added to My News.
For the past seven years, charity organisation One Meal has provided hundreds of meals each week to people in need across Sydney, but lockdown has seen the group’s work become more vital than ever.
Regular weekly community meetings serving up hot meals for homeless and struggling Sydneysiders were cancelled with Covid restrictions but One Meal chairman Rob Cook said the organisation has pivoted and is still providing more than 1000 hot meals a week to people in need.
“Pre-Covid we focused on providing a sense of community so unfortunately Covid has put a bit of a dampener on our services from a social point of view but we have managed to keep all our services going,” Mr Cook said.
“We have had to shift our services to takeaway, but the biggest thing we’ve done in terms of Covid response is we’ve launched hamper programs … The big explosion in need has been people who have suddenly lost their job in Covid and lost their income.”
Mr Cook said One Meal’s services “have been noticed in the community more since lockdown”.
“More people have been offering to volunteer,” he said.
“We have in fact grown the service since the pandemic, we are currently providing more than 1200 hot meals a week.”
Mr Cook said while volunteer groups have been delivering hampers all across Sydney but the most impressive hamper program has been the northern beaches.
One Meal volunteers in the northern beaches have delivered cooked meals, non-perishables and pantry staples to their vulnerable community members, all of which have been donated from their local community.
The organisation in the city’s north has been delivering over 300 hampers and 500 cooked meals every week across their community.
“Nearly 800 extra meals were delivered to people in need these past 10 days,” the group posted on their Facebook page.
“Thank you to everyone who has cooked, packed, collated and delivered.”
Everest winner Nature Strip jumps at chance for new job
One of racing’s most successful thoroughbreds, Nature Strip, has left the sprinting behind to take on a new journey which could even take him to the Olympic Games.
Labor’s misinformation bill opens up a ‘Pandora’s box of powers’
Australians refusing to co-operate with “misinformation hearings” could be jailed for up to a year, the Coalition has claimed, while others slam Labor’s “big brother” bill.