$30,000 in grants over the past two years from the Give Where You Live Foundation have helped Hesse Rural Health to establish food relief services in Winchelsea.
Data suggested that Winchelsea has a high proportion of low income and single parent households. The area has a SEIFA score of 954.4 which is the lowest in the Surf Coast Shire indicating higher levels of disadvantage; including financial hardship, low education attainment, housing stress and unemployment. Hesse Rural health were seeing people forego meals to afford essential medicines or to pay bills. Some members of the community were unable to have their basic needs met.
Food relief was generally inaccessible to the Winchelsea community, with getting to Geelong or Colac the only two options. With barriers to access fresh, healthy food including poor public transport and the ability to afford petrol, the situation for many people in Winchelsea was further exacerbated by fact that the only food shopping retailer in the town is a small independent grocery store.
Bringing the community together to work on the project, the funding supported the employment of a Foodbank Coordinator who facilitated the initial project and continues to oversee the foodbank. The Food Security Coordinator initially established the Food Access Action Group, which comprised 12 community members. The Groups role was to co-design an appropriate food relief model for Winchelsea to provide sustainable food relief to reduce the number of people experiencing food insecurity in Winchelsea and surrounding communities. This evolved to become the Winchelsea Community Foodbank.
Winchelsea Community Foodbank opened at the beginning of June 2024 and within a week was seeing 36 people through the door every Friday. This number has continued to grow with an average of 50 people attending every week.”People are accessing food relief with this increased supply of affordable and accessible healthier fresh, frozen and chilled foods. Partnerships across the region have become established with Geelong Food Share and Foodbank Victoria supporting the Winchelsea Foodbank with weekly food deliveries to ensure the shelves are full. Community support for the project has been overwhelming.”
The Give Where You Live Foundation is proud to provide grant funding and partner with Hesse Rural Health on this important project which is helping to feed an average of 114 people per week in Winchelsea. We’re so proud of the work Hesse Rural Health has done in identifying this very real issue and working with the community to make real change.