Robert Peachey first got the idea for Heathcote Foodshare while travelling around Australia.
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He had no prior experience working in welfare, other than running large businesses, nor did he envisage just how big it would grow in less than 12 months.
“I ran into a couple of these types of things not like this but similar in Queensland and I just thought to myself what a great idea,” he said.
“So I came back to Heathcote to stop for a while and I thought to myself, ‘Why can’t we do it here?’.”
Fast forward 10 months and the volunteer group now supplies free meals to hundreds of people each week and is helping to fill a much needed gap in the town.
“We’re finding the food’s just become a small part of what we do now,” says Mr Peachey.
“People just call in – they’re travelling through, they’re stuck, they’ve run out of money, or whatever. So we find somewhere for them to stay sometimes or we get them some food. There has become such a big social side of us that we didn’t expect to get.”
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Each Wednesday, tables behind the local guide hall are piled high with free food as people come and go collecting what they need from midday.
Before that, and on every other weekday, the group also operates a “cafe” – for free of course – from the same grassed area for people to drop in for a cuppa and chat.
Most mornings volunteers will arrive at 6.30am to fire up the barbecue, ensuring those who turn up don’t leave without breakfast.
Volunteer Sally Harris says the people who drop in range from elderly residents to young couples with children.
“Some people just come for a chat and it gets them out of the house,” she says.
“Especially some of the older men that live alone, they’re glad to have some company and have someone to chat to.”
The group relies on donations and sources most of its food from Bendigo Foodshare, which volunteers then turn into frozen home-cooked meals.
About 200 go out each week, half during Wednesday’s Foodshare and the rest to whoever needs it at all hours of the day.
“The phone never stops,” says Mr Peachey.
“The police even call us now.”
From meals to emergency accommodation, or just someone to sit and listen, Mr Peachey says anything the group can help with, the volunteers will do their very best.
“We can’t promise anything but we do the best we can,” he said.
“There are some things you just can’t fix, but they’ve got an ear who can listen to them and there's food and we can find somewhere if they're in trouble. It's what we do.”
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During Peter Howden’s first five years in Heathcote, he estimates he met about four people in the town.
“I was living in my backyard and not moving out of it,” the retiree said.
“The wheelie bin went out more than me.”
Fed up with spending too much time at home, he joined Heathcote Foodshare as a volunteer in its second week of operation.
“And I’ve just been coming here ever since,” Mr Howden said.
“Now I can name 40 or 50 people that come here through a day time.”
The volunteer now spends his time in the “cafe” chatting to the people who turn up to each day.
Some just want to talk, others come for a meal.
“Some of these people are so reclusive,” he says.
“If we can get them to come in here and talk to us, then if they don’t turn up, we can go out and look for them.”
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Not content with just providing free meals to more than 300 people each week, Heathcote Foodshare chief executive Robert Peachey is launching a new project to further help the town’s vulnerable.
Volunteers are raising money to buy a minivan, in the hopes of being able to use it to transport people who cannot drive.
“The cheapest trip to Bendigo now is $50 a day out of Heathcote and the oldies just can’t afford it,” Mr Peachey said.
“It’s just a simple fact of life - a lot of them don’t have radiation, they don’t have these things done simply because of the cost of it.”
But in an emergency situation, the van could serve a second purpose.
“We’ve really found there’s a lot of vulnerable people out there living in little shanties and all sorts of things we’ve identified,” Mr Peachey said.
“So if we get an emergency, a fire or floods or anything, we can pick them up and bring them into the hospital or somewhere safe.”
The group has already expanded its foodshare service into Axedale and hopes the transport service would also benefit it and the other small areas nearby.
“That's why we need the transport service,” Mr Peachey said. “It would do so many things.”
For more information on accessing help or to donate to Heathcote Foodshare, call Robert Peachey on 0438 997 649.