Our CEO Paul Barnett cooked up a storm last week to help feed people in need at OzHarvest’s flagship fundraiser, Community CookOff. The Community CookOff brings together business leaders, corporate teams and chefs from Sydney’s top restaurants to prepare and cook meals for those who need it most, while also helping to reduce food waste. Paul spent time getting a few handy tips off famous chef Brent Savage and the team at Cirrus Dining.
OzHarvest Founder and CEO, Ronni Kahn AO says that the need for food relief has hit an all-time high in the last two years with 1 in 6 Australians now considered severely food insecure. “The impact of the bushfires, drought, floods and COVID-19 has seen more people than ever turn to charities for help. We have seen demand for our services increase at a time when our resources are most under pressure. The Community CookOff brings people together to connect over great food at the same time as raising valuable funds to help keep our wheels turning” said Ronni.
Every $1 donated allows OzHarvest to deliver two meals to people in need. The fundraising total from the Community CookOff event is currently sitting at an incredible $2,377,353 – that is 4,754,706 additional meals OzHarvest can deliver to vulnerable Australians.
OzHarvest was founded in 2004 by Ronni after she saw how much food was going to waste when working in her events business. Since 2004, OzHarvest have delivered over 200 million meals to Australians and they continue to assist over 1,600 charities across the country. Ronni did not set out to create a charity, rather just fix an obvious problem. OzHarvest began from humble beginnings, with just one yellow van in Sydney and have now expanded nationally with offices in Sydney, Adelaide, Brisbane, Gold Coast, Cairns, Canberra, Melbourne, Newcastle and Perth.
OzHarvest expanded to the Central Coast in 2020 with a local legend Luke driving the truck to deliver quality food to vulnerable people in our community. The truck covers as far as Woy Woy in the south and San Remo in the North. The impact on the Central Coast specifically is 20 charities supported, 13 food donors (supermarkets, cafes and restaurants etc. donating their surplus food), and 217,637 meals delivered. If you are interested in volunteering with the Central Coast OzHarvest team, led by Annika Stott and Luke McKelvey click here.
Mingara is proud to support OzHarvest by donating $10,000 which will provide 20,000 meals to those who need it most.
