BATHURST'S HopeCare is easing food insecurity, not only locally, but around the wider Central West, thanks to a unique partnership.
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The organisation has, for around three years, been working with Australia's largest food rescue agency, SecondBite, to increase access to food for those doing it tough.
It not only helps people in need, but also prevents tens of thousands of kilograms of food going into landfill.
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Operations and welfare services manager, Elliot Redwin, said HopeCare is part of a group of agencies, called Food Rescue Central West, and they all benefit from the partnership with SecondBite.
"SecondBite, they procure food - rescued food and also food that might have damaged packaging, food that might be surplus to need, donated food - and they distribute that out to their partner charities across the state, of which we are one," he said.
"I think one of the unique aspects of our partnership in this particular instance is that, as opposed to one charity coming in and getting food, we're picking up bulk amounts of food and distributing to lots of other charities as well.
"It's not just coming to HopeCare, it's going all over the region."
HopeCare is able to source a range of food through the partnership that charities often don't get to access, such as fresh fruit and vegetables.
They also receive frozen mince, frozen fish, frozen and refrigerated pasta, and pantry staples such as tinned soups and sauces.
HopeCare sends a refrigerated truck to Penrith around once a fortnight to pick up pallets of food and bring them back to the new storage warehouse in Kelso, a space that was necessary due to increased need.
The food is then transported out to the other agencies from Food Rescue Central West.
These agencies are the Lithgow Information and Neighbourhood Centre (LINC), Oberon Christian Life Centre, Canowindra Food Basket, Cowra Food Hall, Georgie's Pantry in Parkes, Molong Food Pantry, FoodCare Orange, and The Little Pantry in Bathurst.
Mr Redwin estimated that, between the nine agencies, this food relief initiative is supporting about 30,000 people a year.
Importantly, clients are getting access to a larger supply and better array of food.
"In regional areas, it's harder for us to access these sort of products, because they tend to aggregate around larger metropolitan areas, such as Sydney," Mr Redwin said.
"The beauty of this partnership is they're trucking some stuff out to us and we're trucking it on. The difference it makes to people is it's providing people in the Central West with access to supplies that they didn't have access to before from charities.
"... The partnership helps us with the challenges that geography provides for regional people in terms of access to resources. And it's great for our clientele."
Mr Redwin expects the partnership with SecondBite to keep growing and said local businesses can help too by making donations of food to HopeCare.