By Eleanor Wilson
The Cardinia Foundation has announced the launch of a new funding program to address the rising issue of food insecurity in the shire.
The philanthropic foundation, which has been assisting community organisations throughout Cardinia and Casey for two decades, is in the process of establishing an ongoing food fund that aims to provide grants to local emergency food relief organisations.
The Food Support Fund will exist in addition to the foundation’s annual community grants program, which supports charity projects in a range of fields including education, health and wellbeing, social cohesion, the environment and the arts.
Cardinia Foundation chief executive Kara Norton-Jones said the organisation has set a fundraising goal of $100,000 to put towards the food fund.
“We can obviously see there’s a growth in charities needing that support, so we feel like we can help there and this is what that all started from,” she said.
Emergency food relief provider Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA) is one such organisation which could benefit from the fund.
ADRA provides a weekly hot meal service, pantry service and crisis relief packs to Cardinia residents from Pakenham’s Lakeside.
The organisation’s Victorian director Rebecca Auriant said the organisation has seen a 30 per cent increase in demand over the last six months.
“Initially we were seeing about 20 families on a Thursday night, now we’re seeing more like 30 families, plus we’re increasing our deliveries on the Friday to around 50 families, which used to be around 30,” she said.
“We’ve seen a particular increase in the working poor, as well as more people who are facing domestic and family violence and also more people who have become homeless.”
She said the Cardinia Foundation’s decision to pivot to support the cost of living crisis at a local level was “brilliant”.
“We’re seeing across the state a lack of quality produce, however we find that because Cardinia is more remote, the produce is not as readily available as it is in other LGAs and we are having to make more plans to get produce to families.”
The Cardinia Foundation has assisted community groups in Casey and Cardinia with $800,000 in funding since its inception in 2003.
The implementation of the Food Support Fund is the latest in a series of changes for its strategic direction.
In February last year, the Casey Cardinia Foundation, as it was formerly known, made the decision to focus solely on strengthening community groups within the Cardinia region.
The foundation is also looking at diversifying its fundraising methods, including the addition of a ‘donate through payroll’ option, which would allow donors to give a portion of their paycheck to the charity.
To donate to the Cardinia’s Foundation’s Food Support Fund, head to cardinia-foundation.grassrootz.com/the-food-support-fund/donate
