Glen Park Community Centre

The community is certainly at the heart of Glen Park Community Centre. Since opening the doors to its Community Pantry in 2018, the pantry provides food relief to families and community members of the Bayswater community.

The Community Pantry offers a selection of fresh fruit and vegetables, bread, frozen meals, non-perishable food and personal hygiene items for those in need. A home-cooked meal (from the attached Café on the Park social enterprise) and hearty conversation are also served up to pantry attendees.

Glen Park Community Centre CEO Heidi Butler-Moore believes the key is to provide a space which connects the Community Pantry members to the wider community.

“There would be many people that may find food resources somewhere else but I don’t think they would have the connectedness they have now through the pantry. It’s the ripple effect of that, which I think is really benefiting our community,” she said.

With qualified chef Naomi Butler-Moore at the helm, Glen Park Community Centre also hosts community meals several times a year. With many of the Community Pantry members attending these events, Heidi believes “the social inclusion part of the meals is the greatest outcome.”

Chef Naomi is proudly involved in all food activities at the Centre; from ordering and collecting food for the Community Pantry, to designing menus and preparing and cooking meals at the Café on the Park. For Naomi, working at Glen Park Community Centre can be emotional.

“It does bring me to tears a lot. It has opened my eyes to how much we waste as a society and how much people go without. When I’m out at the back of the ute sorting through the fruit and veggies and someone grabs you by the arm, and they have tears in their eyes thanking you, you just take a step back and think – wow. To me, I am just doing what I am doing, and you don’t realise the impact until something like that happens,” said Naomi.

As for the future of the Community Pantry, Heidi and her team are positive about increasing the number of families they assist. Regardless of what challenges they might face, Heidi passionately states – “we’ll make it work!”

Find out more about the Community Pantry and Café on the Park at Glen Park Community Centre, at cafeonthepark.org.au