Supermarket giant Coles raises funds to support food rescue partner SecondBite in its continuing work of feeding vulnerable Australians, as the latest research showed that due to the COVID-19 impact, 8 out 10 community food charities expect greater demand for food relief.
As part of its Christmas Appeal, Coles was able to raise nearly $2.2 million, enough to provide SecondBite’s 1,400 partner charities and community organisations with more than ten million meals for their food relief programs.
“Prior to Christmas, eight out of ten community organisations told us they expected demand for food relief to increase due to the impact of COVID-19. These funds help us to address this increased demand because for every dollar raised by Coles, we can provide the equivalent of five meals to a person or family in need,” SecondBite CEO Steve Clifford said.
“We are enormously grateful to our customers who embraced the spirit of Christmas by giving so generously to SecondBite to enable meals to be provided to Australians in need. It clearly suggests that many of our shoppers put aside their own challenges arising from COVID-19 to think of others in a worse situation,” he said.
Coles supermarkets as well as Liquorland, First Choice Liquor Market and Vintage Cellars stores contributed to the record amount raised through the Christmas Appeal.
Broadway in NSW, Elsternwick in Victoria, The Pines in Queensland, Firle in SA, Casuarina in NT, Charles Street (Launceston) in TAS, Maddington in WA and Chisholm in the ACT were the top fundraising Coles supermarkets. Meanwhile, First Choice Liquor stores in Falcon (WA), Duncraig (WA), Cleveland (QLD), Morayfield (QLD) and Bendigo (VIC) were the top Coles liquor stores across Australia.
Photo Credit: SecondBite / secondbite.org
Coles’ partnership with SecondBite has been running for a decade now and has been key to Coles’ ambitions for zero hunger and zero waste, Coles Chief Sustainability, Property and Export Officer Thinus Keevé said. The Christmas Appeal was launched as the Coles-SecondBite partnership celebrates its milestone.
“We are enormously grateful to our customers who embraced the spirit of Christmas by giving so generously to SecondBite to enable meals to be provided to Australians in need. It clearly suggests that many of our shoppers put aside their own challenges arising from COVID-19 to think of others in a worse situation,” Mr Keevé said.
SecondBite was established in 2005 in Melbourne by a small group of individuals led by Ian and Simone Carson who visited market stalls to collect unsold food for donation to local charities that run a food program.
SecondBite’s partnership with Coles has allowed the organisation to expand the scale of its operations and reach which has now grown to more than 600 volunteers, and over 75 staff members nationwide.
