Charity FoodAssist Toowoomba still needs volunteers despite great response to appeal for more hands

An appeal in an article of The Chronicle led to a big response, but a Toowoomba food charity says it still needs volunteers to help support the city’s neediest.

SUPPORT NEEDED: FoodAssist Toowoomba manager Harvinder Khalsa says the group has seen a huge jump in volunteers, but more will be needed to ensure it can get back to full strength.

One of Toowoomba’s largest affordable food charities has been overwhelmed by the response to a recent request for more volunteers, but urged residents against getting complacent.

Rockville’s FoodAssist was desperate for more hands in January to help it feed a growing demand for food parcels when an article in The Chronicle led to a sharp spike in both new clients and volunteers.

Manager Harvinder Khalsa said the initial interest was encouraging, but added that the enthusiasm had already started to drop off.

FoodAssist Toowoomba manager Harvinder Khalsa (left) with volunteer Remy Turura.

“In the beginning, right after that article came out, there were so many calls from people who had never heard about FoodAssist — so we got both customers and volunteers,” he said.

“People will get the feeling of wanting to help, and then it slowly fades away, so we want to ask the community to keep coming forward.

“We want to emphasise the work here is physical, but we’ve had some really good volunteers who are doing one or two days a week.

“It’s not a one-off thing – we’ve been here for such a long time and we want to continue helping people.”

FoodAssist’s customer base has only continued to grow since January, with more people needing help to afford food.

Mr Khalsa said the organisation was close to relaunching its delivery service to help in towns outside Toowoomba.

“In the past we were doing outreach runs out of Toowoomba delivering food hampers, for people who could not come in,” he said.

“If there is someone who can’t do manual labour but can drive to a location, stay there for an hour and drive back, we want them as well.”

To get involved with Toowoomba FoodAssist, call 4634 1157 or find it on Facebook.