Albury Wodonga Regional FoodShare (AWR FoodShare) is a Not for Profit company that rescues food, shares food and empowers people so that on-one in our region goes hungry. We operate a first class warehouse in Moorefield Park Drive Wodonga where we collect food from over 32 producers and distribute this to over 100 agencies who in turn provide this food to people who would otherwise go hungry. We are primarily volunteer run with over 100 amazing volunteers helping us with everything from driving our van, to sorting and packing food, to various customer service and administration tasks. We have a highly skilled manager, Peter Matthews who keeps things ticking in the best way possible and a volunteer board focussing on governance and growth. We were established due to of the collaborative effort of over 70 local health and welfare organisations that identified the need for a better logistical way for sourcing, storing, transporting and sharing food for people in need. As a result, Albury Wodonga Regional FoodShare, in its first year of operation has:

• More than doubled food rescue and distribution within the region
• Significantly increase the availability of fresh food for people in need
• Increased the number of organisations that have access to rescued food for their clients in need
• Reduced the stress and cost to local agencies in having to provide volunteers and coordination for sourcing food donations and bulk food storage

We service a 150km radius of Albury Wodonga including the local government areas of Wodonga, Albury, Indigo, Towong, Alpine, Wangaratta, Greater Hume and Corowa (population 164,247). Within this region approximately 22,230 people are living in poverty and on any given day, 2,230 people require food assistance just to survive. These include single parents, low-income families, the elderly, the unemployed, the under-employed, those with a disability or mental illness, students, people with alcohol or other drug addictions and the homeless. Most of the time, most people living in poverty manage to get by, but they don’t have a buffer for when something goes wrong like prolonged illness or unexpected bills etc. Going without food is often the only way they can afford to get back on top of the financial struggles. Often, parents will go without food so their children can eat or the whole family will start skipping meals or simply eat the cheapest possible (high fat/low nutrient) food available. That’s where AWR FoodShare and our team of support agencies come in. We believe access to fresh, nutritious, culturally appropriate food is a human right and in this land of plenty, it is unacceptable that people would have to go without food because of financial difficulties. We provide people doing it tough with the food they need so they can get back on their feet. In fact, in our first year of operation, we provided the equivalent of 1.3 million meals to people in need.

We source between 40-70% of our food locally from:

• Farmers – fruit, veggies, meat, dairy
• Food producers - like Uncle Toby’s, Mars, SPC
• Supermarkets – like Aldi, Coles, Woolworths, IGA
• Retailers - Green Grocers, Chicken stores, etc

We also receive food from our partners, FoodBank Victoria and other Melbourne based agencies such as FairShare and Second Bite. And… we also receive food from our Hume Region FoodShare friends based in Bendigo, Shepparton and Cobram. In fact, we share food with these organisations too, ensuring any excess food we cannot use within the necessary time period does not get wasted.

Our goal is to increase the availability for fresh, wholesome food that supports people experiencing poverty having a nutritious diet. This involves maximising the rescue of perishable foods such as fruit, vegetables, meats and dairy products and distributing these quickly to maintain their freshness. It also means maintaining a line of staple foods such as cereals, rice, pasta, bread, sauces, condiments etc. Due to the nature of our food rescue operation, we have ever changing stock lines that require us to be responsive to seasonal and other opportunities. The same regulatory food safety standards apply to our operation as it does to all Australian food oriented services. We have very strict stock transport and control mechanisms in place and we do not accept or distribute food that is past its’ used by date or does not meet other food safety requirements. A lot of the food that we rescue would be landfill simply because:

• The packaging is incorrect, or
• The product weight is a few grams off, or
• It was a new line that didn’t sell very well, or
• It’s just not selling fast enough and is getting close to its use by date, or
• It got slightly damaged by the weather etc.

We distribute our food to community service organisations who come into contact with people in need. These include welfare agencies, child care centres, schools, universities/TAFEs, neighbourhood centres, community groups/services etc. Some examples include; Uniting Care Wodonga, CareVan, Salvation Army, St Vincent de Paul, St David’s Care, Corryong FoodBank, Mirambeena Meals Program, Wodonga TAFE, Charles Sturt University, La Trobe University, and Wodonga Middle Years College.

As a primarily volunteer-run organisation there are lots of ways you can help;

• Donate food
• Donate funds
• Fundraise for us
• Become a sponsor
• Become a volunteer

Take a look through How You Can Help section to find out more about the many ways you can help or just give us a call.

Donate Food

Albury Wodonga Regional FoodShare is a Not for Profit, volunteer-run organisation that is taking a big bite out of poverty in our region. In the words of Nelson Mandela, we believe “Poverty is not an accident. Like slavery and apartheid, it is man-made and can be removed by the actions of human beings.” We have been designed and established by our community to address poverty locally and rely on the ongoing support of our community to succeed. We do not currently receive any government funding. For every $1 you donate, we can distribute at least $7 worth of food to people in need. So if you believe everyone has a right to nutritious food in our region, please help us make it so.

You can donate either by cheque, electronic bank transfer or PayPal. Simply click the link below to head to our Donate Funds web page.

Donate Food