Cootamundra Community Kitchen at 90 Thompson Street on Wednesdays at 5:30pm are serving an estimated 76 meals every time, fully relying on donations and community kindness to keep up the meals.
Diane Williams of the Community Kitchen said they have been averaging that for a while, even moving into takeaway orders.
“If someone’s unable to come out but needs a meal we do takeaways so people can pop in and pick one up for them,” she said. “It’s all voluntary and it doesn’t cost anything for the meals. We like to have some in the freezer as well as some on stand by in case something happens and the church sends people to us or things like that.”
“We get donations of meat and bits and pieces that we try to make sure the meals have meat and vegetables. It’s open to anyone, even people who are lonely and don’t have any family here. It’s an open invitation to anyone to come along on a Wednesday at 5:30pm. It’s normally a main meal and a dessert. We don’t do it in school holidays.”
Being a community run service, it relies on volunteers and donations to run. “They can just send a message on the Facebook page. Donations of rice and pasta and things like that are always really handy because we try to bulk up the meals too.
“There’s always room for anyone who wants to come and help. We start cooking at about 10:30am on the Wednesday. We have a few different groups of people that come in. Some people start it, the next people come in in the afternoon to cut it up and do whatever to get ready and then we have serving people, but there’s always room for more helpers because people go on holidays or will go away or things like that.
“Even the smallest donation can go a long way. It doesn’t have to be a big donation, little things all add up to make it. We are very lucky living in Cootamundra. The community are aware of the need in the town and we are very lucky that the Red Cross are helping. The Outback Bakery gives us bread on a Wednesday. The community is very good.”
“We want to thank the volunteers and people who do donate and we get things things from Woollies too. Everyone who gives up their time because people have to go and pick up donations and bits and pieces. There’s a whole range of people doing different jobs to make a Wednesday happen.”
-Jack Murray
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