SecondBite | FareShare support hungry people at Uniting Prahran
Fresh SecondBite food and nutritious FareShare meals are available free of charge to people at Uniting Prahran’s subsidised café and via their emergency food relief services.
“We’ve noticed a huge increase. Almost double from last year. Biggest it’s ever been,” says Bryce Bronstein, the Team Leader at Uniting Prahran. “Some of our clients are solely reliant on the food here.”
Thanks to the generous support of SecondBite and FareShare donors, we can provide this inner Melbourne community with a diverse range of food and ready-to-eat meals, combined offerings that are essential to their community members who are struggling right now.
The café is abuzz with people. Near the entrance, people help themselves to SecondBite fruit and vegetables stacked on a shelf. Volunteers and community members chat away amicably. FareShare meals are placed neatly on the café counter for people to take, perhaps for their dinner or to help feed them during the week ahead.
One of the café’s patrons is Elizabeth. She has been frequenting Uniting Prahran on and off for years and greatly appreciates the SecondBite food she has received.
“Here, we have such a lot of choice,” she says. “We have the hot lunches, the fruit and bread and other food from SecondBite to take home, the FareShare meals. Sharing food amongst people, helping people with their budgets, I think it’s fantastic.”
“I see a lot more people using these services now. If you’re working and paying off a mortgage, bills, you’ve got children… Maybe you can pay the mortgage these days, but food and activities for the kids just have to go because they’re too expensive. It must be cruel.”
Over time, Elizabeth has seen the impact our food has on people at Uniting Prahran, and is effusive in her praise for SecondBite | FareShare…
“I can’t thank everybody enough… Just keep doing what you’re doing and what Uniting Prahran are doing. Just keep it going.”
Another regular is Jay. For Jay and his family, it was FareShare meals that made a huge difference when he got injured at work and lost his job.
“My father and I ate FareShare meals for a solid six months. I was out of work for four months – I got injured and had to pay a lot of my own medical costs. Meanwhile, I had two young kids to feed, a sick father to look after. Your meals really helped during that time. I didn’t have to think about what I was going to eat. And I enjoyed them…they tasted good. Flavour, quality, no issues.”
Thankfully, Jay has found work, although at times he and his family still rely on the SecondBite produce, FareShare meals, and hot meals available at Uniting Prahran; on this particular day, he is enjoying lunch with his family before beginning a 16-hour shift.
It’s great that SecondBite | FareShare can support people like Elizabeth and Jay with food when they need it. But for Bryce, our food assistance helps Uniting Prahran with their other services too…
“Your food is the ticket to accessing other services, for sure. Once people get some food, there are some who’ll say, ‘Yeah, I’ll talk to you now’. It’s a trust thing. They come here and know we’ll give them food, so they’re open to receiving information and maybe trying something new that can help.”
Through our partnership with Uniting Prahran, SecondBite | FareShare’s nutritious food and meals not only support people experiencing hardship right now, but also help people to access more holistic, long-term assistance, which can benefit them for a long time to come.
This is all made possible by you: our community. And with your continued support, SecondBite | FareShare can expand our reach to more charity partners like Uniting Prahran. Please support us today. Whatever you can spare will help provide peace-of-mind and nourishment to people who are facing hardship right now, and get us one step closer to ending hunger in Australia.