“Feed the hungry, and help those in trouble. Then your light will shine out from the darkness, and the darkness around you will be as bright as noon” (Isaiah 58:10-14 NLT).
According to the Foodbank Hunger Report 2023, more than 36% of Australian households experienced moderate to severe food insecurity last year. Of those 3.7 million households, more than half skipped meals or entire days of eating, and the rest had to compromise on meal quality to fit their budgets. Another 12% of the population were considered marginally food insecure, meaning they worried their food supplies might run out.
For many of Sydney’s Seventh-day Adventist churches, this hardship is an opportunity to reach our neighbours where they most need us. To fight food insecurity, local churches come together to organise, stock, and maintain food pantries to help their communities get the food they need and feel supported. Here are a few stories from these local initiatives.
Mount Druitt Food Bank Serves a Diverse Community
The Mount Druitt Food Pantry opens every Wednesday from 11:30 am to 12:30 pm to distribute food parcels to its community. More than 40 families rely on this ministry. For three years, retired church members have volunteered weekly to keep the pantry running and show Christ’s love to their neighbours.
Pantry volunteers spend more than $300 a week to buy supplies, much of it at a discount from Foodbank, the largest hunger charity in Australia. Then they assemble parcels of food for their neighbours who need a hand up. For just a small donation, recipients take home a valuable package of food to stock their pantries. Petrol is also available for pick up.
“It means a great deal to our members and others struggling to make ends meet,” shares Metuatane “Tua” Mangi, food pantry manager.
The Mount Druitt Church food bank is grateful for any type of monetary assistance. Donations allow volunteers to purchase more diverse items for the parcels.
“We as a church are called to serve those in need,” Mangi shares. “We live in a diverse community, and providing food services lets us engage with our community. It’s important to support the service we provide.”
Helping Working Families in Macquarie Fields
The ADRA Community Centre in Macquarie Fields is in a lower-income area, and many families in the nearby community struggle to pay bills and afford groceries, on top of dealing with domestic violence issues, homelessness, the need for counselling, and family breakdowns.
“People can’t survive without food, and we are finding it’s not only low-income earners, but working families that can’t afford to buy food,” shares food pantry manager Joanne Perry.
After experiencing the range of needs its neighbours struggle with, ADRA Community Centre is looking to expand its offerings and find ways to help community members access financial counselling.
“According to the Financial Counselling Foundation, 15% of Australian households are experiencing money stress,” Perry says. “Today, more than 53% of Australians report just making ends meet or worse. As one of the nations with the highest household debt, many families are suffering by rising costs and are facing decisions whether to put food on the table or pay bills.”
While ADRA assists clients who are under financial distress whenever possible, monetary donations and sponsorships for services and support can help clients gain financial freedom moving forward. “Jesus said it is more blessed to give than to receive, and God said as we bring all the tithes into the storehouse, there will be enough food,” reminds Perry. “The ADRA Community Centre can walk the journey with our clients as a holistic approach—practically, spiritually, mentally, and financially.”
Sydney Chinese Adventist Church Supports 25 Families a Week
The Sydney Chinese Adventist Church opened in August 2022 and serves approximately 25 families every week. “We run the food pantry every Thursday,” shares Pr Robert Zhang. “The ministry distributed around 7,800 kilos of food to the community in the first year.”
Food pantry staff says even small gifts of cash donations or food will help support the ministry and the community. “In the post-COVID period with the increased cost of living, many households are struggling with food security,” says Pr Zhang. “According to Matthew 25:40, when we help someone struggling either physically or spiritually, and who is not able to pay us back, we are doing this to Christ.”
The Sydney Chinese Church food pantry also welcomes volunteers, including individuals able to deliver food from the food bank to the church weekly.
Hurstville Church set up a pop-up food pantry for the St George area for the first time in the Adventist history. Located at 181 Parramatta Road, Annandale, NSW, community members in need of groceries are encouraged to visit during open hours to help fill their cupboards. Â
Volunteer church members distribute items including bread, canned vegetables, milk, rice, pasta, muesli bars, noodles, fresh fruit and vegetables.
More than 100 community members have registered to receive a list of food items every week; they also get invitations to events at the church, such as health seminars and vegetarian cooking demonstrations. There is an increasing number of people returning each week.
The food pantry is a joint initiative with the Sydney City Mission and Lifestyle Centre, a not-for-profit which is headed by Pr Kerina-Lee Joy, who attended the Hurstville Adventist Church as a child.Â
ADRA Blacktown Feeds Families and Prevents Waste
ADRA Blacktown hosts GSC’s largest food bank. They require around $30,000 per year to purchase the food needed to serve their clients. In the first nine months of 2023 alone, it received nearly 9,000 visits from families, feeding around 20,000 adults and 10,000 children.
That may sound overwhelming, but organizers share that a donation of about $600 can help cover the food needs of the pantry for a whole week, and just $100 allows the centre to give one family a weekly parcel of groceries for an entire year.
The pantry distributes bags of food valued around $35 each, but most of the food is sourced from food rescue avenues. This means ADRA Blacktown spends only about $2 on each bag of food, making sure more than 200 tons of good food goes to families rather than into landfills.
“The ministry is able to make every dollar stretch more than tenfold,” shares centre manager Grace Copaceanu. “The gift of food not just a blessing for struggling community members, but rather it is one of the purest ways of sharing the love and blessings we know God pours over us every day.”
Many of the clients who visit ADRA Blacktown for food relief have said that the centre is the one beacon of hope they hold on to when times are tough.
“Although many of them do not know God or seek for Him, they are touched by Him whenever they reach out for support at ADRA Blacktown,” says Copaceanu.
Find Help or Get Involved
To find a food bank near you, visit sydney.adventist.org.au/locations.
To give to our local food banks, send a donation at egiving.org.au and note where you’d like funds to go. You can also donate directly towards the sponsor churches, or volunteer by contacting your local church or food pantry.
