THERE is such a thing as a free lunch for disadvantaged pupils at Mahogany Rise Primary School in Frankston North thanks to dedicated volunteers who make sandwiches for children who arrive at school without food for lunch.
The Frankston North school is one of 16 schools throughout Victoria to benefit from volunteer-run service called Eat Up founded by Lyndon Galea three years ago.
The 28-year-old social entrepreneur had the idea to provide free lunches for pupils in need when he read about some children at schools in his hometown of Shepparton going without lunch.
“That just came as a complete shock. I had no idea that was an issue locally,” Mr Galea said.
Before establishing Eat Up, a charity connecting existing groups such as TAFE students and Foodbanks to provide the school lunches, Mr Galea set up a kitchen operation to feed needy kids in Shepparton.
“Initially, it was just me and some family and mates making some sandwiches in our kitchen but as we worked with schools we found this was a concern for many families.”
Mr Gallea works part-time as a delivery driver for perishable food rescue organisation OzHarvest and it didn’t take long for OzHarvest to jump on board the Eat Up initiative.
“I just thought it was so inspirational I thought I had to be part of it so we collaborated on it,” OzHarvest project officer Karen Spindel said.
A visit to Cornish College in Bangholme where Grade 6 pupils prepared lunches for other schools’ children saw Ms Spindel expand the Eat Up message.
“I thought ‘wouldn’t it be nice if the kids wrote a message on it?’. So they wrote messages and drew pictures on the bags.”
Mr Galea said the reaction from lunch recipients and teachers to the “inspirational messages” on the lunch bags “was really powerful” and led to Eat Up scribbling messages of support on all lunch bags dished out.
Mahogany Rise Primary assistant principal Daniel Riley said the sandwiches, delivered weekly and frozen for future use, “ease the pressure” on staff who had previously made school lunches for some children at the school.
“This is a highly disadvantaged area and we do have a quite a number of children who sometimes come to school without breakfast or lunch and we do have an emergency food pantry for families in crisis but the Eat Up lunches is a huge thing,” he said.
Mr Riley reckons about five children per day on average at the school tuck into an Eat Up provided sandwich.
“We do keep a record of who gets what because if there’s a pattern there we’ll intervene with the family and find out’s happening and find out if they need a bit of extra support. Generally it’s one offs here and there.”
The Sheep Station Bakehouse in Mt Eliza has jumped onboard to help, providing bread and rolls each week to be passed on as food packages to disadvantaged families whose children attend Mahogany Rise Primary.
Eat Up plans to expand the free school lunches offer to where it is most needed across the state.
Mr Galea said Eat Up is speaking to AFL clubs and A League clubs “to sign the odd bag” or contribute some work to help us out “to make the bag special as well”.
Search for ‘Eat Up Australia’ on Facebook or see eatup.org.au for further details and to nominate a school for the free school lunches project.
