Hornsby Connect has now been providing a food pantry service to the Hornsby and Ku-ring-gai communities since spring 2016.
We operate from the Hornsby Youth & Family Centre, cnr Muriel & Burdett Streets. A group of about 8 volunteers work between 08:00 and 12:00 each Tuesday to prepare food hampers. A similar number of volunteers come in each Wednesday between 07:00 and 14:00 to supervise the collection of hampers by our clients. Although the majority of the families who we support each week collect their hampers, we do also provide a limited delivery service to people who cannot come to us.
A small team of drivers are rostered to collect most of our food supply each Tuesday morning from FoodBank in our own refrigerated truck. We also make a collection from the Woolworths home delivery warehouse in Brookvale on a Tuesday afternoon. In addition, a number of local businesses supply us with bread, cookies and meat pies.
"Read More" below some of the challenges and opportunities facing the team.
Before the covid restrictions we also ran a café which provided free hot lunches, together with a place for clients to socialise together. This also gave us the opportunity for our volunteers to chat to clients and identify other services to which it would be appropriate to refer them. We plan to resume that service as soon as COVID-19 restrictions allow it.
We received a State Government grant to purchase our truck in 2019, and this year we have received a Federal Government grant to build the sheltered outdoor area where we will be able to operate the café.
We have a great team of volunteers, although we are always delighted to welcome more. We also have great support from Rotary. Four of our management committee are Wahroonga Rotarians, and we have a Ku-ring-gai Rotarian too!
One area of challenge is in management of day-to-day operations. I have combined the roles of President and Operations Manager for eighteen months, and I would welcome the opportunity to relinquish the daily management of the charity. If anyone knows of someone with appropriate management skills, with the time to commit to two days per week, please ask them to contact me. We are also on the lookout for a specialist fund-raiser to join our management committee.
Stuart Armstrong (President of Hornsby Connect)