GMA volunteers help out at Foodbank Community Kitchen

The GMA team in Perth offered their support to the local  community by spending two days helping in the Foodbank Community Kitchen in April this year. 

The volunteers helped prepare packaged meals to be distributed to individuals and families in need across Western Australia. The kitchen produces over 1,000 affordable packaged meals per week using mainly donated ingredients and therefore, reducing food waste to 3%. 

“It was a rewarding and informative experience to learn more about our community and the hardships a significant number of people are facing in just feeding their families. I felt privileged to have the opportunity to assist a very valuable community service,” said GMA Global Technical Manager Paul Bode. 

For GMA Sales Administrator Emma McCarthy, it was a very humbling experience for her. 

“I’ve always wanted to volunteer at a non-profit organisation as such and to be given the opportunity to do this during working hours was great,” Emma said. 

Some disturbing truths have been revealed in the Foodbank Hunger Report 2018, namely that in the last year, one in five Australians (18%) have experienced food insecurity - where they didn’t have enough food for themselves or their family and could not afford to buy food.

The report also revealed that one in four Australians have gone for an entire day without eating due to food insecurity. For nearly 20 years, Foodbank Western Australia have been running the School Breakfast Programme to help the large numbers of children in the state going to school hungry. 

This programme provides a nutritious breakfast to 18,000 students each week and continues to have a far more profound positive impact on students, teachers and the community than was ever expected. 

By Stephanie Cheong, Perth 

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