Single parent serves others as welfare is cut

Great service: Gloria Anderson hasn't stopped smiling though her budget's getting tight. Picture: Wayne Hawkins

By CAMERON LUCADOU-WELLS

SINGLE mother Gloria Anderson has found good deeds are not necessarily returned in kind.

The volunteer chef — and about 84,000 single parents like her — have been on the receiving end of a $60 a week cut from the federal government.

Charities such as Dandenong-based Avocare report a growing number of single parents, moved onto less generous Newstart benefits in January, pleading for material help.

Ms Anderson has not joined that queue, but says life is undeniably tighter. There’s less to spend on groceries and on her two primary school-aged children.

Even so, she has not let up on her busy routine. Three days a week, she cooks free hot lunches for about 100 diners at charity Cornerstone Contact Centre in Dandenong and Doveton Baptist Benevolent Society. She’s paid for 15 hours work a week — but volunteers at least 15 more.

She also does regular food pick-ups for Cornerstone from Avocare, and delivers doughnuts for Dandenong CFA’s crew. “If the firemen are getting fat, blame me,” she laughs.

Ms Anderson voluntarily runs a children’s arts and crafts group at Dandenong West Primary School and once a week drops off bread and fruit parcels for hungry students’ breakfasts.

“Serving the community is in my heart,” she said. Having grown up in India, she watched her parents serve those in tremendous poverty.

But the single parents cut has forced her to wonder how her own family can eat at times. The family budget is never far from her mind.

“The government expects us to do full-time work and look after the kids,” she said. “How do they expect us to do that?”

Avocare director Trish Keilty said the working poor and single parents were joining a large influx of people in need, including asylum seekers and refugees.

She said there were lengthening queues — up to 70 — at the charity’s soup kitchen at Palm Plaza on Wednesdays — “they’re mostly the same people every week”.

A spokeswoman for Employment Minister Bill Shorten last week denied reports that the federal government was considering a reversal of the single parent cuts.

Cornerstone is in need of a kitchen freezer. If you can help, call 0415 888 528.

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