TRANSCRIPT
In a single day, more than 1,000 hot meals are made up by a charity kitchen in Sydney’s Bondi.
The food is for families and others in need – from the inner city to the Blue Mountains out west. Overseeing the production line is head chef Dave Eley.
“We're a very busy kitchen and if we're not busy, people don't eat. That's exactly right. We try to produce as much food as we can. We are producing around about five and a half thousand meals a week.”
It’s a military-style operation under the supervision of manager George Karounis who says output has soared this year, to deal with the cost-of-living crisis.
“I haven't seen it this bad. There's been a significant increase in this year, not just people sleeping rough or in shelters or sleeping in cars, but it is people knocking on the doors now to the larger charity groups and hence they're coming to us and they're people who are behind mortgage payments or struggling with the cost of living pressures or behind in rentals. And the cost-of-living pressure is real.”
Over the past 15 years Mr Karounis has helped grow Our Big Kitchen or OBK, a non-denominational food service staffed mainly by volunteers. He has risen from kitchen hand to operations manager, but says he’s never seen food insecurity like this:
“A lot of a charity groups that come down and if they're scheduled to pick up 150 invariably they'll turn around and tell me: ‘George, can I get an extra 50, an extra 60?’ At this moment we're coping. I think if that increases about 6,500 to 7,000 meals a week, then we'll be struggling to keep up with that demand for services.”
“At the moment, we are seeing food insecurity rates at a level that we've never seen them before. We know the 2023 Food Bank Hunger Report showed us 3.7 million households across Australia have experienced food insecurity and we currently are doing our research in the field at the moment and I have every expectation that not only will that number have increased, but there's been a really significant shift in the severity that people are facing. One of the really concerning shifts that we've seen across multiple communities is not only people in full-time employment who are needing food relief, but people with multiple job holdings. These are families where they've got one or two main income earners working full-time during the day and then one of those parents is going off and engaging in the gig economy. The real shame that we have here in Australia is that we have the second highest rates in the world of households wasting food. We have 7.6 million tons of food being wasted each year, and yet 3.7 million households are struggling to put a meal on the table. We've got to get the balance right.”
The Salvation Army feeds many of those in need.
Their van picks up 140 meals from OBK for immediate delivery. Danny is a Salvation Army Community Outreach Co-Ordinator who says hot meals like green curry and rice or beef bolognese are a lifeline for many.
“Get a hot meal on a night like tonight, it means a lot. It's very cold and the need is getting greater and greater with things getting tight out there with money. We're seeing a lot more people on the street that may not be sleeping rough, just people doing it tough.”
For almost 20 years, OBK has helped sustain a city’s most vulnerable.
It began in 2005, the vision of Rabbi Dr Dovid Slavin and his wife Laya both born to Jewish parents who survived the Holocaust in World War Two.
Rabbi Slavin says he learned to value food after hearing about his father’s incarceration in a Russian prison.
“Dad was born and raised in Russia and then he ended up in the gulags. He survived miraculously, but part of that was most inmates died from hunger. There was very little food to go around in the wider community in the jail, much more so. So, I grew up in a home where throwing at food simply did not happen. My mum was born and raised till the war broke out in an idyllic, beautiful town halfway between Warsaw and Bielsk. And then when the war broke out, within about a week of the Germans invading Poland, they were in her town and Jews were given an opportunity 24 hours to pack up and go, which they grabbed, went to the Russian side, didn't accept Russian citizenship, which put them into Siberia.
It was very tough. I mean, my mum, one of the things that she's never quite gotten over is the loss of a brother from starvation, two-and-a-half year old boy. Well, he kept asking for a bit of bread. She never says the story without crying, until today. And although she was only 11 at the time, she doesn't forgive herself for not having been able to provide for him.”
It’s one reason Rabbi Slavin has devoted his life to feeding others since migrating from New York in the early 90’s to marry Laya. For her part, the former hairdresser began this venture in her home kitchen by making meals for women undergoing chemotherapy.
LAYA: “I cannot begin to tell you the difference these meals, they were magic, they were magic. I'm still in touch with many of the women today. And those meals were a lifeline using our kitchen.”
RABBI: ”I'm incredibly proud of what Laya’s done. Very, very proud. A lot more we need to do. We have not begun to scratch the surface.”
They’ve already set up a sister OBK in America’s Los Angeles and provided inspiration to other international projects.
“We've had a lot of inquiries from many, many charities. We had a collaboration with Morocco where a woman who's doing lots of good work on the streets came over here to learn in depth exactly what is that we're doing. And we're really working on developing a backend, so that we can share more information of policies and procedures with other charities who approach us.”
Parents to eight children themselves, the couple source helping hands by partnering with the community. Among those giving their time, principal of St Charles Catholic Primary School in Waverley Michael Manton.
“We're aware of families within our community that do need the support. Three meals a day is important obviously for us to make a difference for at least one or two of those meals today, was a great opportunity.”
Rabbi Slavin is grateful for the ongoing community and corporate support and says without it, OBK would struggle to meet rising demand.
“In a country like Australia, salaries are very, very high. So for us to employ people, will really raise the cost of meal production. So, we've always looked wherever there is a possibility of getting people to help in any way, shape or form. When it comes to team building, they could do white water rafting and painful shooting and rock climbing and escape rooms. All wonderful, wonderful things. But we say it to people, once we've done all of those, let's try to do something a bit more meaningful, come together in a fun and inclusive way.”
And that’s the core message behind OBK. As Rabbi Slavin says – in this time of growing global conflict - uniting diverse communities could not be more crucial.
“We brought Jewish, Muslim and Christian children to cook with each other. And we have been very successful in being able to bring people from very, very different backgrounds in together and to realize: hey, we may speak somewhat different languages, we may look a bit different, but ultimately we are one and the same.”
