A special message from our CEO

I love sharing these newsletters with you, because they provide real evidence of how much difference your kindness makes.

I often write to you to thank you and tell you just how wonderful you are. But this newsletter here shows that it’s not just my personal opinion: your kindness really is amazing, and really does change lives.

You can see how your generosity helped Layla’s family through the stress of COVID, when she discovered they only had one day of food left.

And you can see how you helped single dad Phillip and his two girls to make it through the toughest times of their lives, as they battled through the combined impact of job loss, fires, COVID and chronic health issues.

You’ll see how you were part of our massive flood response. When the roads were closed, you helped send in the helicopters!!

We are in the midst of the greatest hunger crisis in recent history, and it’s only getting worse.

With the rising cost of living, we expect more and more families to find themselves going hungry.

And yet, because of you and our community of kind people like you, I am confident we can meet this urgent need.

Together, we’ve proven that we can and do respond with great strength. We’ve proven that no matter how great the crisis, or how frequent, we will be there for Aussies in need. We will make sure we can deliver urgently needed food – to wherever and to whoever needs it, for as long as they need it.

Together, we will help Aussie families through whatever challenges come our way: with compassion, generosity and strength.

– John

They’ll never forget your kindness

When Layla looks back on the stress of COVID lockdowns, she remembers the horror of running out of food.

She remembers the days, weeks and months when her husband’s work was shut down and they lost essential income. She remembers the strain of home-schooling four kids in a tiny apartment, and when they all came down with COVID one by one. She remembers opening the fridge to discover they had only one day left of food – and no funds to buy more.

But most of all, she remembers your kindness.

She remembers the sheer delight and surprise of receiving Foodbank hampers.

We had no milk, no bread, no toilet paper. We only had one day left of pasta, that was it.

Our food hamper arrived two days after that first call. We didn’t expect three boxes! It was a godsend.

We just couldn’t believe what we received. It was all the essentials that you could ask for. Lots of food, masks, tea, coffee, toilet paper, washing powder, disinfectant. We were shocked, it was so generous. It was like Christmas!

Layla says the family are now back on their feet, but they’ll never forget your generosity. The kids are back at school, and her husband’s work is open and as busy as ever.

It’s still tough, especially with the increasing cost of groceries and petrol, but they’re going strong.

She says she knows her family was just one of many who needed help during COVID, and she’s so very, very grateful for your help. Layla’s absolutely right – tens of thousands of families needed help during COVID, and wonderful kind people like you were there for them with nourishing food to get them through.

Thank you for being there for families like Layla’s!

Phillip’s girls are thriving – thanks to you!

We recently heard back from Phillip and his girls, Indy and Carlie. You might remember Phillip from the Christmas before last. He’d lost months of work and income – first due to the bushfires, then COVID lockdown, and then an acute health condition.

Back then, he just wanted to give the girls a bit of Christmas cheer, but he couldn’t even afford basic food.

To know you can’t feed your children properly is the most gut-wrenching feeling as a single parent.

My two girls are my world. They are everything to me. I just want to do the best for them.

Phillip says he and the girls have been doing really well lately. Indy and Carlie are loving school, and despite all the disruptions, they’re working hard and giving it everything they’ve got.

It’s still tough sometimes with Phillip’s chronic health issues, but Foodbank will be there for him no matter how long it takes to get back on his feet. He says it makes a huge difference to know that people like you are there to support him and his girls if they need it.

It’s such a relief to know that kind people are there for us when we need it. I hope I can return the kindness one day soon.

Now that I don’t have to worry about where the next meal will come from, I can make sure the girls have everything they need for school. Just being able to afford things like pens and shoes makes a big difference. I know I’m sending them off to school with breakfast in their tummies and food in their lunch box.

I’m just really, really thankful.

Thank you for your outpouring of help in the floods

Then together, we ramped up operations to gather food, water and essential supplies and got them to those who needed them most, doing whatever it took: truck, train, human chain… and even helicopter.

Thanks to donors like you, we have so far been able to  get more than 150,000 kgs of food to people hit by the recent floods in NSW. To put that in context, that’s 300,000 meals to feed communities whose livelihoods were shattered overnight. Our relief efforts to these affected areas are still ongoing.

The speed and strength of your response to the recent floods was nothing short of phenomenal. Within no time at all, you allowed Foodbank to be right there in the midst of the floods, handing out urgently-needed supplies.

When the trucks couldn’t get through, you helped send in helicopters packed with emergency hampers.

When the warehouse was slammed with demand, you helped open another warehouse even closer to the floodsites.

When the rains kept coming, and the floods spread all across the state, you kept supplying the food and stocking the trucks and delivering box after box after box.

Thank you for your outpouring of generosity. We couldn’t have done it without you.