By CAMERON LUCADOU-WELLS
IT ticks over to 4pm, Wednesday and the hoardes seemingly arrive from nowhere.
The throng are here for some warm nutritious grub and a grocery top-up at a recently set up soup kitchen in Dandenong North.
Avocare, an employment training service doubling as a charity, has recently set up the increasingly popular service at the old Meals-on-Wheels kitchen in Menzies Avenue.
Many of the 70-odd visitors are openly grateful for the help. Many of them are senior pensioners.
One of the visitors Rosie, a pensioner, says she needed this “bit extra” to help her get by. Another says she is humbled. “There’s never been anything like it before around here.”
A gold-coin donation covers the kitchen’s utility bills. In exchange, the visitors load up bags and trolleys of fresh fruit and veg, bread, yoghurt, soup packs and sweet treats.
“There’s a lot of older people around here not eating properly, skipping meals,” director Trish Keilty says.
“We encourage them to pick up a meal.”
Ms Keilty hopes that recent maildrops to 1000 households in the neighbourhood will draw more visitors. Over summer, there are plans for barbecue meals in the next-door park.
In the background, Avocare’s commercial cookery trainees are getting valuable hands-on experience in mass cookery.
In the well-equipped commercial kitchen, they prepare the hot meals to-go, such as Thai curries sealed in take-away containers, and cups of not-too-spicy vegetarian soup.
On other days of the week, the kitchen crew cooks free meals for the next-door seniors club, boarders at the Royal District Nursing Service’s rooming house, Hanover housing charity, Eastern Region Mental Health Association groups and Creativity Australia choirs.
The produce is “rescued” from Avocare’s warehouse, which supplies charities and soup kitchens across Melbourne’s south-east.
The soup kitchen opens 4-6pm on Wednesdays at Menzies Reserve, Menzies Avenue, Dandenong North.
