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The highlight of the Coles Store Support Centre sustainability week (May 9 – 13) was definitely the mini warehouse set up at their head office, in which staff came to pack much needed hampers of essential pantry items in support of SecondBite.

Mid Richmond Neighbourhood Centre (also known as the Consortium of Neighbourhood Centres) has been in the thick of emergency relief work for flood ravaged communities in northern NSW over the past several months. Located in Evans Head and servicing services nearby towns of Coraki, Broadwater and Woodburn, the centre was delivering emergency food parcels and others essential items via boat to evacuation centres and areas of higher ground where locals were congregated during the worst of the flooding.  

Celebrating its 10th anniversary this year, Food Assist is an Adelaide-based charity which provides food relief across several locations in the city and as far afield as Kangaroo Island, supporting more than 1000 people each week. Over the past seven years working with SecondBite, it has received a whopping 780,000 kg of fresh food and pantry staples.

Australia’s major food rescue organisations have come together to ensure those experiencing hardship are not forgotten in the lead-up to the Federal election and beyond. SecondBite, Foodbank and OzHarvest are calling on all sides of politics to deliver improved food relief funding and tax incentives to help reduce food waste and feed more Australians doing it tough. Read our joint call for action below.

Coles The Pines store manager Frank McDermott is a passionate advocate for SecondBite and its local charity partners on the Gold Coast and uses his platform not only to inspire and engage his store team members, but his 25,000 customers as well. In almost eight years of food collections The Pines store has donated more than 40,000 kg of food to SecondBite and its charity partners.

SecondBite works with several charity partners nationally, both large and small, that support women and single mothers with food relief. We provide food hampers, prep-prepared meals and community food pantries, which allows the women easy access to food without safety fears.

SecondBite has successfully partnered with Victoria University for the second year in a row to provide free and healthy takeaway meals for VU students.

For young mothers and socially isolated women living in the northern Queensland mining town of Moranbah, the Oasis Life Lounge offers much needed social activities, health support, life skills training and emergency food relief, courtesy of the SecondBite-facilitated community connect program with Coles Moranbah.

Two of SecondBite’s Brisbane agencies who work in tandem for food collection and meal preparation have not let the recent floods in South East Queensland hamper their efforts to provide meals to people in need.