A community collaboration to address need
We love hearing the progress of the services and projects Greater Shepparton Foundation has been involved with.
Our role as a trusted philanthropic hub sees us not only providing financial support to projects and community groups that align with our focus areas, but we also serve as a vital connector of partners and resources. One such project GSF is proud to support is Shepparton Foodshare.
We are thrilled that Shepparton Foodshare recently secured funds to build a new warehouse. Whilst being generously gifted warehouse space over the years, Foodshare has not had secure warehouse tenure, which was a risk for the future of the operation. These recent developments will see Foodshare commence construction on its purpose-built warehouse later this year, a permanent home for this vital community service.
Shepparton Foodshare was established in 2012 when the Community Fund, the entity GSF transitioned from, identified the need and convened a committee to pursue fundraising efforts to establish Foodshare. This came about by having an in-depth knowledge of our community and understanding its challenges. Like GSF the Community Fund provided a grants program to support projects being delivered by local charities and services. A common theme in many of the applications and in community consultation was the alarming need for food and emergency relief. The rest as they say is history, more than a decade on the service remains essential to not only our community’s ongoing food relief needs, but it has also been vital in the crisis and emergency response efforts during the COVID pandemic and the floods.
With living pressures increasing, so is food insecurity. Shepparton Foodshare has distributed 3.7 million kilograms of food to people in need via the more than 100 emergency relief agencies, schools, churches and community meals programs registered to collect food for the people they support. In addition to providing food, the service has a positive impact on environment as it rescues and receives donation of edible food that was otherwise destined for landfill.
Shepparton Foodshare has operated on community generosity over the years. It receives no guaranteed or regular funding and volunteers provide the majority of hours required to operate, it has been a true community collaboration.
The team of 40 volunteers benefit from a sense of community connectedness and resilience and have the opportunity to share and gain skills.
GSF has continued to support Shepparton Foodshare over the years providing grants for equipment, expertise on its board and more recently support by way of the provision of hand sanitizer and cooked meals during the COVID pandemic.
If you would like to support this service and be a part of this community collaboration, Foodshare has it’s annual fundraising dinner, ‘Make a Meal of June’ coming up in June so look out for ticket sales and follow their Facebook page to stay up to date.
To read more about the projects that GSF has been involved in over the years please visit the 'major projects' and 'grants' pages on our website.
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