Alyssa Fritzlaff
MORWELL Neighbourhood House’s (MNH) People’s Kitchen Program has partnered with EnergyAustralia.
Volunteers from MNH and the energy giant teamed up in the kitchen of A Kinder Cup café this month to provide community members with nutritious, delicious meals.
The People’s Kitchen Program has volunteers cook meals for those people in the community who are experiencing food insecurity.
These meal are then distributed through the organisation’s Foodbank.
Volunteers are comprised of community members, those accessing the foodbank and now, volunteers from industry partners.
The program not only works to provide food for community members, but develop volunteer’s food literacy and skills.
EnergyAustralia Latrobe Valley community and communications lead David Burt said the company was excited to be part of the program.
The partnership is born from EnergyAustralia’s Workplace Giving program, through which employees make a donation to an charity or organisation, which is then “matched” by EnergyAustralia.
The Kinder Cup.
“We’ve partnered with the People’s Kitchen as we recognise the work that they do in supporting the community,” Mr Burt said.
“Not only are many of us making donations to the people’s kitchen, but we also have the opportunity to do some volunteering as well.”
Mr Burt said the team of volunteers from EnergyAustralia were enjoying their time in the kitchen.
“We’ve got a really good mix of people, we’ve got someone from Yallourn mines, someone from the power station. Our facilities manager and supervisor is here,” he said.
“Our workforce in particular have been really passionate about this particular charitable organisation, mainly because of the work that they do in providing meals and providing support systems.”
“It’s a great opportunity,’’ he added.
MNH manager Tracie Lund said the partnership is a fantastic opportunity for MNH.
“EnergyAustralia was looking for a community partner, and we were lucky enough to be considered for that partnership,” she said.
“In 2022 we are really committed to expanding our People’s Kitchen program, and a part of that is providing opportunities for business and industry to get involved.”
Ms Lund said food insecurity is a really big issue for the Latrobe Valley community.
“We know many people in our community don’t have a lived experience with food insecurity. It is a really wicked problem… one that many, many people experience every day.”
This was the first time the People’s Kitchen Program took place at MNH’s A Kinder Cup cafe.
“We are anticipating about 60 meals out of today, this is our first time cooking at A Kinder Cup for the People’s Kitchen. Today is really about learning on the job,” Ms Lund said.
“This isn’t scaled up as much as we hope others will be in the future.”
Usually the program takes place in MNH, so the new space took a bit of getting used to.
However, Ms Lund said the A Kinder Cup kitchen is a much more industrial space and easier to use for such a big operation.
The A Kinder Cup kitchen will continue to be used for programs like this. Ms Lund said that even when the café is closed, it is being used for important community programs.
The recipe chosen for the big day was lasagne and vegetables, cooked from scratched and packed with nutrition.
“We wanted to make sure that it was a recipe most people had cooked before, we didn’t want to do anything that was too daunting,” Ms Lund said.
“The lasagne has allowed us to put things in like lentils, spinach, and carrots.”
“The nutritional value of the meal is really important.”
Ms Lund said that the food literacy taught through the kitchen has even inspired volunteers from the community, and from the Foodbank to make changes to their lifestyle.
“We’ve had a lot of really good feedback from people that have already participated in the program around changes they’ve made in their day-to-day cooking,” she said.
