Feed Geelong: Accessing food during COVID-19

Give Where You Live Foundation continues to support the delivery of food relief and to support increased demand for support as a result of the COVID-19 crisis in our region.

The Give Where You Live Foundation operates in Victoria in Australia which has experienced some of the strictest and tightest lockdown requirements across the globe, as we sought to gain control of the COVID-19 outbreak in our community.

Over the past year Victoria, Australia has continued to be challenged by the impact of COVID-19, and over the winter months entered yet another prolonged lockdown as a preventative measure at to reduce the impact of the pandemic across our State whilst the vaccine rollout occurred. Whilst we had some reprieve over the summer months, the food relief sector however contributed to experience unprecedented demand. With continued periods of lockdown over the year, along with the removal of key government income relief, many across the State continued to struggle and demand for food relief again increased.

As the crisis extended we continued to see increase in demand from many members of our community, including those in precarious employment, international students, and families. Over the past year Give Where You Live has responded in a number of ways to support our local community:

• Continued collation and publication of information on where people can access food relief across our region, with critical updates during each lockdown.

• Funding an additional 12 grants to local community organisations to directly assist with the provision of food relief to meet current levels of demand - grant funding totalled $221,130 (https://www.feedgeelong.org.au/2021/07/2022-grant-recipients)
• Undertook research to better understand the needs and challenges being experienced by the food relief sector during the COVID-19 crisis.
• Provided additional $35,000 in emergency grants to 7 frontline agencies struggling to meet demand for emergency relief during lockdown (https://www.givewhereyoulive.com.au/2021/09/35000-in-emergency-grants/ ).
• Extended our social media campaign to promote food relief agencies available across our region, and also other critical services.

Give Where You Live Foundation continues to monitor the current sitation and needs of communtiy, and adapt our response to better meet the increase demand at this time.

You can find out more about the impact of COVID-19 on the local food relief sector here: 
https://www.feedgeelong.org.au/wp-content/uploads/pdf/Food-for-Thought-August-2021.pdf

Community Stories 

Kylie is a single mum of 4 children. Caring for a family of 5 the expenses add up very quickly.  Kylie often needs to make choices of what she spends her valuable money on.  Purchasing food for the family is often difficult, many parents just like Kylie go without to ensure their children eat.

You can read the full story here https://www.feedgeelong.org.au/2021/10/helping-everyday-families-every-day

Links:

• Food for Thought Research