Well for starters nobody that volunteers for us draws a salary, well, I should say literally nobody in the organisation does. Not the people who run it, nobody. The cooks are grannies and other people with spare time who cook using their own money and time in their own kitchens. The drivers who collect the food are volunteers who pay for their own petrol. The volunteers who hand out food are doing it for the love of their fellow human being.

We’re not a registered charity and we don’t beg for permits from the capitalist state which is why there have been attempts to repress our work all across the country. In Sydney alone we’ve received almost $1000 in fines this year because the pigs want to force us away from the area because there are bougie cafes there and it’s right in front of the federal bank building.

We also actually interact with the people who come down as human beings and not pigs to be handed the lowest form of slop and be looked down upon. Often people who come down to the kitchen end up helping the org out.

While we don’t have unlimited resources as a fully donation/volunteer based org, we try to help out wherever we can. We’ve found ways to get beds and roofs for people who approach us in crisis. We’re working on setting up a gardening program for old or disabled folks who can’t do it themselves, as well as a DV support van which can help victims move out of their abusive home.

We also show up rain, hail, or covid (with measures in place of course). Last year during the big lockdowns here most organisations stopped showing up out of fear of getting fined or catching covid, left a tonne of needy people in the lurch. We showed up every week.