By Tanya Faulkner
A local charity is taking the next step in their services for the Knox community.
The Outer East Foodshare have announced their expansion into Knox, with the opening of a new distribution centre in the municipality.
The foodshare currently has a location in Lilydale, however the expansion to Knox will bring more opportunities to serve the wider Hills community.
Outer East Foodshare president John Csorgo said it’s a timely expansion for the charity.
“The new distribution centre will help us to save time with getting deliveries in and out, and allow us more space to store food and meet more of the needs in the community.
“We have been struggling to manage excess food, and it has been hard to plan getting food out to our distributors at times, so this new location will make a big difference,” he said.
The new location will also allow for agencies and distributors to drop off and pick up food as required during the week, without relying on volunteers being on-site, providing more flexibility to meet demand.
Post-covid has proven to be difficult on the Hills communities, showing there is a higher demand for locals in need of food support to take care of their families.
According to Mr Csorgo, the foodshare and distributors are only meeting approximately 60 per cent of the community’s demand, and hope this new site will allow them to support even more families in need.
“The demand in the community is quite high, and we are working just underneath the community demand.
“We need volunteers to help with distribution in Knox, and we also need more growers to help with supply.
“We’ll be reaching out to growers in the coming months now that we have more space, to see if we can pick up excess produce and distribute more to the community,” he said.
The goal for Mr Csorgo is to be able to work in a more proactive manner than reactive to help the community, and hope to support more families in the Yarra Ranges and Knox municipalities.
The foodshare collects rescued food and surplus products from a number of agencies, such as Food Bank Victoria and Coles supermarkets among others, and distributes it to local food relief agencies to feed the community.
