Community
7 February, 2025
Community Meals seeking new cooking teams
CAMPERDOWN Community Meals at the Uniting Church will be coming back for another year in coming weeks, but more teams are needed to help continue the tradition.
The community meals have been hosted at the Camperdown Uniting Church since 2009 and is catered by a rotation of seven teams from various community groups, schools and workplaces.
Teams include the Camperdown Lions, students from Mercy Regional College, Camperdown College and St Patrick’s Primary School, Corangamite Shire Council staff, and Woolworths Camperdown staff.
The teams work alongside the ‘A-Team’ – a group of five volunteers who supervise and assist during the preparation and serving stages.
The two-course meals are served every Wednesday during school terms, but the limited number of teams means some terms have teams cooking multiple times.
Community Meal coordinator Jennine Harrison said the empty weeks of longer terms are usually filled by the cooking teams who elect to cook again in the same term.
“That’s good, but we don’t want to put the pressure on anyone,” she said.
“If they offer and say they want to do it, they’ll do it. If not, we’ll have to condense it down.
“We do have a tin for people who want to make a donation – not everyone does, but there’s no judgement.
“Some people are happy to put in $5, or gold coins, and it all goes back to the church for the community meals.”
The donations, including a recent gift of $500 from the Camperdown Rotary Club, often goes towards the provision of ingredients for the meals, which are also donated by Woolworths.
Camperdown Uniting Church’s Colin Hayman said the church is considering reaching out to businesses in Camperdown to see if any are willing to donate food to the community meal.
“We’ve sent a few letters out, and the only response we’ve had was Rotary, which is positive in what they’re suggesting but they don’t have the resources to do the meals themselves,” he said.
“We’re always looking for improvements to the kitchen – we don’t want to get to the stage where we need to do significant maintenance.”
Community Meal coordinator Stuart Harrison said the weekly community meals serve an average of 50 meals per week, which can seem daunting to some.
“A lot of people are unsure of what they’re doing,” he said.
“It’s not hard – we’re here.
“All it could be is a number of chickens and salad – it’s only a matter of breaking it up.
“There’s no cooking there, just preparing it.
“Even packets of fish with a certain number of bits in it. It’s not real hard.”
Interested individuals are encouraged to reach out to the Camperdown Uniting Church on 5593 1118 to volunteer, and they can either provide their own team of friends or colleagues or be assigned a team with other individuals.
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