New research from Foodbank reveals that 48 per cent of NSW welfare agencies have been unable to assist people whocome in for food relief, due to lack of supplies. What’s shocking is that it’s not just the homeless who need food, as low-income families were identified as the largest group of recipients seeking food support.
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With the help of the Australian public, three million loaves of bread could be making their way to these Australians in need. In the lead-up to Christmas (until December 18), one loaf of bread will be donated to Foodbank for every loaf of Wonder White or Helga’s purchased across Australia. This provides the potential for a total donation of three million loaves, enough to meet the needs of all of Foodbank’s charities for more than a year.
Our breadometer is more than one-and-a-half million loaves, which is a fantastic effort, but we need your help to get to our final target of three million loaves in order to meet current demand.
It’s great to see the Australian community come together to support those less fortunate. We supply food to 2500 welfare agencies across Australia plus more than 530 school breakfast programs, and we know that they wouldn’t be able to function without a regular supply of bread.
Despite the common misconception that hunger only exists in third world countries, the issue is very real in Australia and affecting more than two million people every year, half of whom are children.
Foodbank’s survey revealed that nine out of 10 welfare agencies don’t have enough food to meet the demand from people unable to feed themselves or their families.
We used to call hunger “the hidden problem” but it’s now impossible to ignore the mounting evidence of the size of this issue in Australia.
In the last few months alone there have been three national surveys, all of which confirm that the problem is real and it’s growing at an alarming rate. It is no longer just the homeless who rely on food relief, but low-income families that, despite their best efforts, are unable to always put food on the table.
Every loaf makes a difference so I urge all Australians to help ease the hardship of someone in need.
Foodbank is the largest hunger relief organisation in Australia and the pantry of the community sector. It is a non-denominational, non-profit, national organisation with distribution centres in all states, the Northern Territory and eight regional centres. It currently provides food to 405 welfare agencies in NSW. In 2011/12, 24 million kilograms of food was distributed to create 32 million meals. This enabled Foodbank to assist 2500 welfare agencies to provide 88,000 meals every day.