Feast with Friends – Making a Difference
‘When we give cheerfully and accept gratefully, everyone is blessed’ – Maya Angelou
This week our Feast with Friends program collaborated with Caboolture Community Action (CCA), a local organisation created to provide assistance and practical needs to vulnerable members of our community, many of whom are currently homeless.
CFN’s Culinary Queen, Jo Temple and the amazing Mary Moua, who receives one on one support, worked tirelessly preparing some delicious and nutritional baked goods for our Enthuse members to take down to the CCA drop in centre for morning tea. Many members of our community experiencing hardship and homelessness pop in to CCA for food hampers/vouchers, a warm shower, a hot cuppa and sometimes just for a chat with a friendly face. Our Enthuse members were so excited to be able to do their part for this inspiring community project, by serving up morning tea to those in need, hearing their stories and putting a smile on their faces.
After learning about the current rise in homelessness throughout our community, some of our Enthuse members decided to research current statistic and were shocked to read that according to the ABS Census, homelessness in Australia has increased 13.7% in just five years. The rate of homelessness suggests that 50 out of every 10,000 people are affected. The highest percentage being kids under 12 years old. Many members of our community are resorted to sleeping in improvised dwellings, tents, or just sleeping on the street with no shelter. How can you eat adequate meals of nutritional value when you are experiencing socioeconomic hardship and do not have a home or even a kitchen to call your own? Many people in this position rely solely on visiting organisations such as CCA, sourcing soup vans, dumpster diving or having to beg on the street.
Here at Enthuse, we feel it’s important to make a difference in our community and to raise awareness on social and community issues, in the hopes of encouraging others to also get involved and lend a helping hand. By doing this we also feel we can challenge the misconception and stereotype that people with a disability are only capable of receiving help. The truth is, having an understanding of what it feels like to sometimes require assistance and support, has allowed us the ability to recognise that giving back to the community and lending a helping hand can be so beneficial to peoples lives.
We are very grateful to CCA for having us and hope to work together again in the future!
‘Love is born through the giving of kindness’ – Inderjeet Singh Rajpal
Signing out – our Roving Reporter crew (Pippa Rogers. Hannah Franks. Kamm Mitchell)