By Tanya Steele
A local church has broken it’s yearly record for its winter canned food drive – donating well over one thousand tins to a local Dandenong ranges charity.
Canned foods make a huge difference in winter to emergency food relief services and the Dandenong Ranges Emergency Relief Service Inc. (DRERS) recently received a huge tinned donation from the Belgrave South Baptist Church.
DRERS Chief Executive Officer Tania Bevan said that the Baptist church and it’s community at Belgrave South has been running the canned food drive in May for several years.
“It’s invaluable to our service – It’s an incredibly huge donation that makes a world of difference,” she said.
“It started out as a small canned food drive in winter. And they’ve just been breaking their own record every year, collecting more and more and more cans.”
Dandenong Ranges Emergency Relief Service in Belgrave has helped thousands of people this year alone.
The charity assists people who cannot afford food, rent, medical bills and other necessities.
Ms Bevan said that the the cost of living crisis, along with the impact of storms impacts many people in the community.
“We need help to keep assisting people who need us,” she said.
Volunteers from the church dropped off the tinned goods to DRERS in the first week of June and goods ranged from cupboard staples to even tinned desserts.
“We’re really grateful that they do it. It’s it’s so generous of them,” said Ms Bevan.
One of the volunteers making the delivery on behalf of the church Kevin said they have the food drive every year.
“There is a long time relationship between DRERS and the church,” he said.
“It’s been freezing the last few nights – these are some of the things we can help with.”
Kevin said that Belgrave South Baptist has a relatively small community but that people want to help.
“We drop off weekly non-perishables to DRERS as well and help out with container deposit,” he said.
“We collect around two 44 gallon drums a week.”
In 2022-2023 DRES distributed over $85,000 worth of assistance for food alone, in groceries and food vouchers.
“This is in addition to all of the other assistance that we provide, for example helping with rent payments, utility and medical bills, and more. We are on track to provide more than $96,000 worth of food assistance in 2023-2024,” said Ms Bevan.
Ms Bevan said that anyone in the community is welcome to come into the DRERS anytime, the organisation welcomes anyone.
“Come in – no appointment needed,” she said.
“I get a lot of feedback from people saying they wish they had come sooner – we do more than food.
“We can help people financially as well.”
DRERS is located at 1616-1624 Burwood Highway Belgrave, Vic 3160 and is always keen for more volunteers as well.
