Flat out food

By Lia Bichel
Since January this year, Avocare has provided more than 172,000 kilos of fresh, pre-packaged, or dried food to more than 45 distribution agencies, equating to 1000 meals a week, according to ACDC training and placement co-ordinator Deborah Hutton-Woodward.
She said the number of meals distributed this month had skyrocketed by 25 to 50 per cent. “Usually these agencies access (our service) once a fortnight, but throughout December they access (our service) weekly,” Ms Hutton-Woodward said.
“We feel it a lot more at Christmas. Many agencies are not open in summer and we want to make sure families are well taken care of.”
Avocare is able to keep up with the demand from a number of supporters including VicRelief food bank, SecondBite and FareShare.
Besides providing food relief, the not-for-profit organisation provides people in the community with innovative holistic, integrated training and employment programs.
Dandenong MP John Pandazopoulos and Skills and Workforce Participation Minister Jacinta Allan visited Avocare last week to congratulate the service for its efforts and also lent a helping hand with the packaging and sorting of food.
“By partnering with community and industry, Avocare has this year provided training and work experience to more than 810 people who had very limited previous education. Their new skills and work experience will help them to get jobs or go on to higher learning,” Ms Allan said.
“And the training and employment they undertake in food handling and preparation has also resulted in more than 182 tonnes of food that would otherwise be wasted being transformed into 52,000 meals for charity organisations to distribute to people doing it tough. I congratulate Avocare for their efforts to give people a hand up offering education and training that makes a real difference – especially at Christmas.”
More than 350 ACE providers will share in the Labor Government’s $57.7 million funding to help people gain the skills they need for employment.
Mr Pandazopoulos said in addition to TAFE institutions and private training providers the government wanted all Victorians to be able to choose to have their skills needs met by their local community education provider.
“The Victorian Government is supporting the future sustainability of the ACE sector by implementing A Stronger ACFE – Delivering Skills for Victoria, our $15.4 million vision for ACE in Victoria,” he said.