Local woman spends $450 a week and more than seven hours making home-cooked meals for the homeless at Labrador

ONCE a week, this Gold Coast woman buys $450 worth of groceries before heading into her kitchen for seven hours straight, and preparing home-cooked feasts for 100 hungry, homeless people.

Shirlian Noy (red hair left side) and volunteers for her charity Helping Hands serve the homeless a special Indian feast at Lenfox Park Labrador. Picture Glenn Hampson

SLAVING away in her home kitchen every Monday for seven hours is all in a day’s charity work for Shaz Noy.

Her charity, Helping Hands, is a not-for-profit organisation that helps feed around 100 homeless people every Monday night at Lenfox Park, Labrador.

Each week, Mrs Noy said she spent about $450 of her own money buying 15 legs of pork, fresh fruit and vegetables and other ingredients to create home-cooked feasts for the city’s most needy.

“My husband (a forklift driver) basically works to feed the homeless,” the Gold Coast grandmother said.

Shirlian Noy (red hair left side) volunteers for her charity Helping Hands, serving the homeless a special Indian feast at Lenfox Park Labrador. Picture Glenn Hampson

“We pay our bills and the rest of our money goes towards cooking meals and putting together care packages for those who have to go without.”

As her registered charity is only seven months old, Mrs Noy is not entitled to government funding so she relies solely on her husband’s wage, and the generosity of the community to feed all the hungry mouths.

And she does it purely for the joy it brings to down-and-out souls.

“I’d rather do what I am doing that go on nice holidays and things like that,” she said.

“It is so humbling and these people are so beautiful.

“It’s so problematic to see people, many of them women with children living in cars, under bridges, out on the streets because they have to.

Helping Hands indeed. Picture Glenn Hampson

“Many of them haven’t had a home-cooked meal in months, even years.”

Helping Hands put on a special Indian feast for 150 homeless men and women at the Lenfox Park ahead of the usual Monday night home-cooked pork roasts.

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“I don’t think people realise the things that make being homeless so hard to escape from,” she said.

“They don’t have fixed addresses so can’t get Centerlink payments, and they don’t have money to get their points of ID to apply for any benefits, houses or jobs.

“It is hard for them to break that cycle without help.”

Helping hands also puts together care packages which include backpacks filled with essentials such as socks, blankets, coffee, toothbrushes, tarps and sanitary items.

They are also raising money to buy swags at a cost of $95 each to hand out.

Mrs Noy said there was more than 4000 homeless people on the Coast, living on the streets, cars and on couches.