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Despite serving up 5,500 free meals a week, this family food charity can’t keep up with demand – MASHAHER

ISLAM GAMAL28 July 2024Last Update :
Despite serving up 5,500 free meals a week, this family food charity can’t keep up with demand – MASHAHER


Volunteers are busy preparing and cooking food for more than 1,000 meals at a charity kitchen in the Sydney suburb of Bondi.
It’s destined for families and others in need, with deliveries stretching from the ocean to the Blue Mountains out west.
“We’re a very busy kitchen and if we’re not busy then people don’t eat,” says head chef Dave Eley.

“We try to produce as much food as we can. At the moment, we are producing around about 5,500 meals every week.”

OBK manager George Karounis preparing meals with volunteers. Source: SBS / Sandra Fulloon

The venue is Our Big Kitchen, or OBK.

Manager George Karounis runs the kitchen with military-style precision. Even so, he says OBK struggles to meet rising demand during the cost of living crisis.
“In all my 15 years here, I have never seen it like this,” he says.

“The cost of living pressure is real. We are not just feeding people sleeping rough, or in shelters or sleeping in cars. We have people knocking on the doors now.

Two women in hair nets ladle food into plastic meal boxes on a stainless steel table.

Meals being prepared by volunteers at OBK. Source: SBS / Sandra Fulloon

“We also support larger charity groups that are feeding more people who are behind in their mortgage payments, struggling with the cost of living pressures or behind [in] paying rent.”

Hunger relief charity Foodbank Australia says higher living costs are impacting ever more households this winter.
“Food insecurity rates are at a level that we’ve never seen before,” says Foodbank Australia CEO Brianna Casey.
“The 2023 Food Bank Hunger Report showed us have experienced food insecurity.
A woman in a hairnet stands at a counter beside mounds of unbaked bread.

Fresh bread is among the foods produced at OBK daily. Source: SBS / Sandra Fulloon

“We are doing field research at the moment and I expect not only will that number have increased, but we are also seeing a really significant shift in the severity that people are facing.

“Across multiple communities, it is not only people in full-time employment who are needing food relief, but people with multiple job holdings,” she says.
“These are families with one or two main income earners working full-time during the day and other jobs at night.”

The Salvation Army feeds many of those in need. Two afternoons a week, the van collects 140 hot meals from OBK for immediate delivery.

A man wearing a black t-shirt with a Slavation Army logo.

Salvation Army coordinator Danny says the need for food relief among the community is “getting greater and greater”. Source: SBS

“Getting a hot meal on a cold night means a lot,” says Danny, a Salvation Army community outreach coordinator.

“And the need is getting greater and greater. Money is tight for many families, and we are seeing a lot more people on the street. They may not be sleeping rough, they are just doing it tough.”

For almost 20 years, OBK has helped sustain Sydney’s most vulnerable.
It’s the vision of Rabbi Dovid Slavin and his wife Laya, both born to Jewish parents who survived the Holocaust during World War Two.

Slavin says he learned to value food after hearing about his father’s incarceration in a Russian prison.

A child sits between a woman with black hair and a man with a black beard who is wearing a hat.

Dovid Slavin as a child with his mother Miriam (left) and father Tzvi (right). Source: Supplied / Rabbi Dovid Slavin

“Dad was born and raised in Russia and then he ended up in the gulags,” he says.

“He survived, miraculously, although most inmates died from hunger.
“There was very little food to go around in the wider community, and in the jail, even less so.

“So, I grew up in a home where throwing out food simply did not happen.”

A man with a grey beard stands next to a child weaing a hat, another woman in a black and floral dress and a woman in a pink dress.

Dovid Slavin (centre) with his father Tzvi (left), his mother Miriam (centre-right) and his late sister Tzivia Zaklos. Source: Supplied / Rabbi Dr Dovid Slavin.

Slavin grew up in New York City in the United States and migrated in the early 1990s to marry Laya. Since then, the couple has devoted their lives to feeding others.

“[Before] World War Two broke out, my mother was born and raised in an idyllic town halfway between Warsaw and Bielsk (in Poland).
“But in 1939, within about a week of the Germans invading Poland, Jews were given 24 hours to pack up and go.

“My mother’s family grabbed the chance and went to the Russian side. But they didn’t accept Russian citizenship, which sent them to Siberia.

A young man in a hat stands next to a woman in a brown dress and another woman in a wedding dress.

Slavin (left) with his mother Miriam (centre) at the wedding of his late sister Tzivia Zaklos. Source: Supplied / Rabbi Dr Dovid Slavin

“It was very tough, and one of the things my mum has never quite gotten over is the loss of a two-and-a-half-year-old brother from starvation. He kept asking for a bit of bread.

“And even now she can never speak about it without crying. Although she was only 11 years old at the time, she cannot forgive herself for not having been able to provide for him.”
Laya Slavin was also born to Polish parents who fled the Holocaust. The former hairdresser started OBK in her home kitchen, making meals for women undergoing chemotherapy.

“I cannot begin to tell you the difference these meals made to women who were in hospital, they were magic,” she says.

A woman with long brown hair and wearing glasses sits in front of a colourful mural wall.

Laya Slavin at OBK. Source: SBS / Spencer Austad

“I am still in touch with many of the women today. And those meals were a lifeline, using our kitchen.”

Her husband Dovid couldn’t be more supportive.
“I’m incredibly proud of what Laya’s done. I am very, very proud,” he says.
“But there is a lot more that we need to do. We have not begun to scratch the surface.

“In a country like Australia, which is blessed with incredible abundance, there is so much perfectly edible food being thrown out while, at the same time, people are going hungry.”

Two women stand behind a stainless steel counter behind tubs of colourful diced vegetables.

Food preparation at OBK. Source: SBS / Sandra Fulloon

Foodbank Australia supports that view.

“The real shame that we have here in Australia is that we have the second highest rates in the world of households wasting food,” says Casey.
“In Australia, we waste 7.6 million tonnes of food annually, costing our economy $36.6 billion.
“And yet we’ve got 3.7 million households who are struggling to put a meal on the table. We’ve got to do better at balancing this.”

OBK is among the organisations trying to correct that, making meals with food donated by supermarkets and charities.

Food preparation is underway at a large commercial kitchen

Volunteers working at the OBK kitchen. Source: SBS / Sandra Fulloon

The non-denominational food service is also staffed mainly by volunteers, although some, like manager George Karounis, stay on as full-time workers.

Since he joined 15 years ago, Karounis has risen from kitchen hand to operations manager. He says OBK has never been busier.
“One charity group that comes down may be scheduled to pick up 150 meals but they will invariably turn around and ask me: ‘George, can I get an extra 50, an extra 60?’

“At this moment we are coping. But I think if demand increases to 6,500 or 7,000 meals a week, then the service will struggle.”

A man with a grey beard holds a baby, sitting next to a woman with brown hair and other children.

Slavin (centre-left) with his wife Laya and other family members. Source: SBS / Spencer Austad

Slavin and Laya are parents to eight children and are proud to source helping hands for OBK from the wider community. He says without it, OBK would struggle to meet rising demand.

“In a country like Australia, salaries are very, very high. So, for us, employing people would really raise the cost of meal production.
“We have always looked wherever there is a possibility of getting people to help in any way, shape or form.

Michael Manton, principal of St Charles Catholic School in Waverley, was among dozens giving their time this week.

A man in a grey hoodie stands inside a commercial kitchen.

School principal Michael Manton is among those who have volunteered their time to help out at OBK. Source: SBS / Spencer Austad

“We are aware of families within our community that do need support,” he says. “Getting three meals a day is important for growing families.

“But the cost of a healthy meal has gone through the roof, and many families are not able to afford hearty meals anymore due to cost of living pressures.

“So, obviously we were keen to make a difference for at least one or two of those meals today.”

Partnering with corporate Australia is a big part of OBK’s success.
“When it comes to team-building, companies can do whitewater rafting, rock climbing and escape rooms. And that is all wonderful.

“But we say to people, once we’ve done that, let’s try to do something a bit more meaningful. Come and volunteer at OBK. We make it fun as a team-building exercise.”

Slavin has already helped to set up another OBK in Los Angeles and says the model has inspired other international projects.
“We have had a lot of inquiries from many, many charities worldwide.
“We had a collaboration [in] Morocco with a woman who’s doing lots of good work on the streets. She came over and spent several days with us to learn in-depth exactly what it is that we’re doing.

“And we’re working on ways to share policies and procedures with other charities who approach us.”

A man with a grey beard sits in front of a colourful mural.

Rabbi Dovid Slavin at OBK. Source: SBS / Spencer Austad

Sharing is the core message behind OBK. As Slavin says, at a time of growing global conflict, uniting diverse communities is crucial.

“We have brought Jewish, Muslim and Christian children to cook with each other. Because while we believe it is important for people to eat, it’s important for people to feed others.

“And we have been very successful in being able to bring people from very, very different backgrounds in together and to [help them] realise that while we may speak different languages, or we may look a bit different, ultimately we are one and the same.”


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