Jenan Taylor
9 November 2023
A bayside church hopes its pantry will help ease worries about the cost of food for people in the broader community, and reduce food waste at the same time.
St Nicholas’ Mordialloc has opened a food pantry in its car park to help people doing it tough make ends meet.
The Mordi Pantry food cabinet is a free initiative that encourages people to trade a donation of excess food including any home-grown produce they might have, for another item.
Church warden Dale Swenson said, with the rising costs of living, people with nothing to give were encouraged to take what they needed.
Read more: The Anglican food relief program that’s run by the people it helps
Mr Swenson said the idea came about because St Nicholas wanted to become a more welcoming church as part of its adoption of the diocese’s Reimagining the Future initiative.
The pantry gave St Nicholas’ and its members the chance to extend hospitality towards people who would normally never approach the church, he said.
He said although the cabinet had only been open a month, plenty of people including members of the public were already contributing food items, and many were collecting from the pantry, attesting some of the need out in the general population.
Mr Swenson said he and a few other church members monitored the food for out of date or perished supplies, and the rate of collection and donation, where possible. People who were doing it tougher were taking the bread and cans of food, in particular.
He said word about the cabinet was getting out, and there was lots of support for it among the local businesses.
The bread and food items were sourced from nearby bakeries and food outlets, and the initiative also received donations from an Aldi supermarket, Mr Swenson said.
He said the small metal shed that was the food cabinet itself, was donated by Bunnings Warehouse.
Mr Swenson said he’d received a call from a man who said he didn’t come to church but had access to lots of food products and wanted permission to put the excess in the cabinet.
“He said ‘I think it’s a fantastic idea, and I’m not really a church-going person, but maybe I’ll come down at special times, Christmas, Easter, things like that.’ I said ‘You’re more than welcome to pop down anytime you want and if you find it welcoming and would like to continue coming, do that. If you don’t, that’s fine, too’,” Mr Swenson said.
He said the cabinet was accessible 24 hours a day and accepted personal items such as soap or toothpaste, and some left over home-grown produce, such as lemons or tomatoes.
Because the cabinet was metal, however, he tended to discourage the donation of fresh food items, Mr Swenson said.
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