Charlotte Varcoe
SUNSET Community Kitchen has finished the year on a high after receiving a $1000 donation from the Belltower Opportunity Shop.
The donation will further help the not-for-profit organization the opportunity to provide food relief for those in need in 2024 after it has continuously serviced about 140 people a week.
Belltower Opportunity Shop volunteer Jude Doyle said the money had come from the shop’s takings throughout the year.
“We had a meeting back early in the year and we thought perhaps we could donate some money to another charity,” Ms Doyle said.
“We asked volunteers to decide what charity they wanted to do and we came up with Sunset Community Kitchen.”
She said it was fantastic the money raised would go towards providing food relief leading into the new year with the cost of living crisis continuing.
“I think this year is going to be a particularly bad year because of the cost of living,” Ms Doyle said.
“We are very happy the money is going to help some people in need.”
She said the opportunity shop had remained very busy within recent weeks leading into the festive period.
“It is an indication that people are struggling and I think the other thing is some of the younger people are becoming more keen for opportunity shopping, it is becoming quite trendy,” Ms Doyle said.
Sunset Community Kitchen president Maree Thomson thanked the shop for its donation saying the committee was grateful for the extra money.
“As everybody knows everything is getting more expensive and we have more and more people coming to us for help,” Ms Thompson said.
“We have been getting very busy and we have noticed a really big uptake on people coming in on Mondays and Wednesdays.”
Ms Thompson said in 2024 she would like to think numbers would not rise but due to the ongoing economic problems and families continuing to struggle, she believed it would.
“This just really helps them out as there is a little bit to feed their families and take that bit of pressure off,” she said.
“We had our Christmas meal on Wednesday which was a special meal for people and we handed out Christmas goodie-bags before we restart on January 29.”
She said volunteers were going to take a “well deserved break” over the Christmas and New Year period to come back refreshed for next year.
In the meantime, Ms Thompson said food relief could be accessed by ac.care from the hours of 9am and 5pm until Sunset Community Kitchen reopened.
“Food relief is more and more needed and it is really sad that we have to do this but the need is there and while the need is there, we will continue to do it,” she said.
