As one of Benevolent’s Child & Family Practitioners in Queensland, Sharman Backhouse has been helping local families in at the Gordonvale Early Years Centre in Cairns for 12 years.
This includes facilitating playgroups, working with families to identify the best ways to support them, and delivering courses for parents that teach them parenting styles and strategies.
Alongside this, Sharman has also been a key driving force behind establishing Benevolent’s Gordonvale Food Pantry, to support families and individuals in the region.
The Gordonvale Food Pantry was recently awarded a $10,000 grant from Optus through the ‘Raising the Bar’ Community Awards. This award recognises the team’s work in providing food assistance to those in need.
Gordonvale Food Pantry team receiving their grant
Establishing the food pantry
Operating out of Benevolent’s Gordonvale Early Years Centre in Cairns, the food pantry has been operating since June 2022 and provides food to anyone in the community including families, retirees, pensioners, homeless people, and those on disability support. The Gordonvale Early Years Centre operates Monday to Friday from 8:30am to 4:30pm. The food pantry open to the public every Thursday from 1 – 4pm.
The idea to establish this support emerged from Benevolent Society’s collaboration with Mission Australia’s Hambledon House Community Centre in Edmonton, north of Gordonvale.
“Hambledon House staff saw there were increasing numbers of community members accessing their Food Pantry service and approached our Gordonvale Early Years Centre to see if we could offer a local access point,” said Sharman.
“Our team were also seeing an increase in requests of food support for the families that come into contact with Benevolent, and how much stress this can inflict on parents trying to provide this foundational need. The Gordonvale Food Pantry was established in partnership with Mission Australia to provide relief for these families and other members of the community in need.”
Community response
The service has been well-received by the community. Sharman and the team have served individuals and families meals on 631 occasions to date – approximately half of which are weekly or fortnightly visitors.
Hundreds of people have also visited the food pantry to pick up smaller essentials, like bread.
As part of this support, Sharman has established a partnership with local Woolworths supermarkets to receive donations of bread and pastries. Sharman and the team also organise food drives and are working to partner with other organisations in the community to ensure food is always available.
“The team have also forged a lot of close connections with individuals and families from the local community through our work at the Gordonvale Food Pantry,” added Sharman. “Having regular chats with those who stop by to pick-up meals, and learning more about their background and what they are going through has also enabled us to refer them to additional support in areas including domestic violence prevention, financial advocacy, housing assistance, mental health and aged care.
“It takes a lot of courage for those in need to ask for help and seek out assistance through services like food pantries. The Optus ‘Raising the Bar’ grant ensures we’ll be able to continue this support and find new ways to expand this even further. This includes building potential partnerships within the local community to help make this Gordonvale Food Pantry as sustainable as possible!”
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