Grant helps In-town Lunch Centre face the future - 14 August 2007
Bunbury’s In Town Lunch Centre has been providing low-cost meals for the city’s battlers for 17 years.
Demand for the service has risen steadily, with 10,000 people presently passing through the doors annually.
Centre chairman Geoff Oddy said the centre was financed with $40,000 from the Department for Community Development and $35,000 from community donations and fundraising.
Mr Oddy said the increase in demand had resulted in the need to raise an additional $50,000 per year.
The South West Development Commission has provided a one-off grant of $25,300 to help the centre come up with a plan to create ongoing revenue to meet the need.
“The Commission’s funding is fantastic – it has taken the pressure off us in the short term and will help us find an answer in the long term,” Mr Oddy said.
“The greater Bunbury area’s population is growing at five per cent per year. Together with increasing house prices it is leading to an increase in demand for meals at the centre.”
The centre provides a hot, three course lunch for users for three dollars, ensuring people in financial difficulty have at least one nutritional meal a day.
South West Development Commission board member Posy Barnes, who presented the In Town Lunch Centre with the cheque today, said the facility provided a critical service to the community.
“Thanks to the lunch centre, the volunteers who make and serve the meals, the people who donate food and money to keep it running and the administrators, people in need are able to access an affordable, healthy meal each day,” she said.
“Just as importantly, centre staff can provide encouragement, support and advice to people facing financial difficulty and point them to where they can get help to turn their circumstances around.
“The South West Development Commission is pleased to support the ongoing running of the centre with this grant.”
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