Kings Community Care helps Gold Coast families put food on the table
The food relief hub at Kings Community Care is helping to feed hundreds of people in need from the southern part of Queensland’s Gold Coast.
Kings Community Care Executive Manager Shirley Sykes said their Reedy Creek hub provided food relief to around 550 – 600 people from their community every week.
“For many people this support is the difference between putting food on the table or going without. Some of our clients have shared that they simply wouldn’t have enough to eat without this service.”
Shirley Sykes, Kings Community Care
Shirley said the people coming in for food relief at their service were struggling to keep up with the basic necessities – like food, rent and bills.
“There’s a lot of people who are right on the breadline in the sense of they could be living somewhere, but they can pay rent or eat, they can’t do both.”
Shirley said they supported a broad range of community members – including people experiencing homelessness, living in their cars or couch surfing, pensioners and families facing hardship.
“You’ve got the families who are now doing it extremely tough, particularly if someone lost their job in the family and they’re struggling.”
How the food relief at Kings Community Care helped Wendy
Wendy – the mother to a blended family of 9 children – reached out to Kings Community Care when her health issues and financial troubles meant she had hit rock bottom.
She’d raised 4 children as a single mother for many years before meeting her new husband who had 5 children of his own.
When Wendy’s lifelong health issues worsened and she was unable to work – and her husband’s business hit financial hurdles – she struggled to feed her family and turned to Kings CC for support.
Wendy said she felt embarrassed that she needed to reach out for food relief, but it had been such a great help to her family, and she encouraged others in need to seek help.
“My message is to families who are working, and blended families, is sometimes you need to reach out for help and that’s the help we needed because that food was our treasure every fortnight.”
Wendy, food recipient from Kings Community Care
Wendy said that Kings CC provided a range of services and support for her family.
“It’s not just food. It’s somewhere where you can go. And feel like you’re normal.”
How SecondBite supports the Kings Community Care food relief program
Through SecondBite’s Community Connect program, Kings CC volunteer drivers collect unsold, edible food from 11 Coles stores in their area using their own vans.
The SecondBite truck makes a fortnightly delivery of rescued food to Kings, and they also travel to our Brisbane warehouse weekly to collect food in their van.
Once the rescued food reaches the Kings hub, it is efficiently unloaded and sorted by cheerful volunteers – including members of the local Robina Lions Club (pictured above).
The Kings team then prepare food hampers to give out directly to people in need through their Reedy Creek Hub.
Food rescued through SecondBite is also stored at Kings in a refrigerated shipping container and they act as a hub for other local charities who collect food to distribute at their own food relief programs – such as Burleigh Church of Christ.
The Kings hub also helps to distribute ready-to-eat meals from the Brisbane FareShare kitchens, so services such as Burleigh Church of Christ can share them with people facing hardship and experiencing homelessness.
Kings Community Care really lives up to its name, by providing broad reaching care for the people doing it tough in their Gold Coast community.
Donate today to SecondBite and help us provide more food to wonderful services like Kings Community Care.