By Eleanor Wilson
A successful fundraising night at Pakenham Racing Club has seen more than $25,000 raised for food support organisation Frankie’s Community Kitchen.
Two hundred people gathered on 1 September to support the Warragul based not-for-profit on its journey to provide hundreds of thousands of hot meals for vulnerable residents throughout Cardinia Shire, Baw Baw Shire and the Latrobe Valley.
The gala night included live and silent auctions and raffles to raise funds for an operations expansion and move to a new, larger warehouse in Warragul.
Frankie’s Community Kitchen co-founder and chairman Geoff Manson said demand for emergency food relief in Cardinia and Gippsland is “huge”.
The service’s 65 volunteers currently spend three nights a week cooking out of the Warragul kitchen to distribute hot meals to nine food relief groups in the region, including The Salvation Army Pakenham, St Vinnies Soup Van Beaconsfield and St Patrick’s Parish Pakenham.
Mr Manson said the organisation will provide 75,000 meals by the end of this year, with that number expected to climb to 100,000 next year.
“We do our best to provide to communities in Cardinia, Baw Baw Shire and the Latrobe Valley, but even travelling out towards Leongatha or Sale, there are another 20 food relief groups we could provide for,“ Mr Manson said.
Frankie’s Community Kitchen was founded in 2017 by Mr Manson and colleague Chris Dortmans.
“I volunteered for two months in a Homeless World Cup on a committee 2008 and I met the committee from Fare Share and they do a great deal of work in the space,” Mr Manson said.
“I kept in contact with them and I knew we needed something similar in Gippsland, so that’s how it came about.”
