Can you spare an hour to make sandwiches for hungry kids?

An Illawarra community organisation has stepped up to ensure children from 18 schools and one TAFE across the Wollongong and Shellharbour local government areas receive a service vital to their wellbeing and education, while breaking down barriers for new refugees living in Wollongong.

Illawarra Multicultural Services (IMS) has teamed up with charity Eat Up Australia to provide free school lunches to children in need.

Refugees volunteer at IMS to make about 670 sandwiches each week during the school term for local schoolchildren from diverse backgrounds who are arriving at school without lunches.

It comes as Eat Up has seen a 31 per cent increase in the number of delivered lunches in NSW in FY24 compared to FY23.

Eat Up Co-CEO Elise Cook says over the past year not only has the number of supported schools increased, but the amount of support to schools as well.

“In the cost-of-living crisis people are trying to make ends meet and have competing priorities. Sadly, they have bills to pay and often those have to come before groceries,” she says. “More and more schools are joining our waitlist for support from Eat Up.”

For Eat Up, which supports more than 890 schools nationally where an average of one in five children need their lunches, volunteers and donations are key to answering that call.

In the Illawarra, IMS is galvanising the community to act, engaging at least one business or organisation to volunteer each week.

IMS has more than 40 community volunteers, more than 85 per cent of whom are from refugee backgrounds – like Oo Reh, who is motivated by his own lived experience.

“I remember when I was little, I didn’t have the opportunity to go to school because of the civil war. Since then, many of our people and generations have remained uneducated,” he says.

“Coming from a refugee background, I understand the challenges many children from disadvantaged backgrounds face. That’s why I participate in this opportunity to ensure that all children don’t go hungry and to contribute to their well-being is deeply meaningful to them.

“I thought Australia was full of wealthy people; I didn’t know that some Australian children would go to school without any food.”

On top of providing free school lunches for local students, the IMS volunteer program helps refugees, particularly from Myanmar/Burma, with conversational English, as they help to feed members of the community and establish new connections.

“I feel proud that I can help,” Oo Reh says. “I never thought I would be able to contribute to this new society because I can’t speak the language and don’t understand the new culture.”

IMS volunteer Saw Htoo says kids at Eat Up supported schools can find themselves in need of lunch for a variety of reasons.

“I have two children myself, and they go to school here. Sometimes, my children go to school hungry because the food we pack for them isn’t enough, and on long school days, they get extra hungry,” he says.

At Eat Up supported schools, sandwiches are delivered discreetly to children.

Karen Simula, the principal at Eat Up supported school Lake Illawarra South Public School says lunches play an important role in classroom behaviour and performance.

“We’ve all heard the term ‘hangry’. When we notice one of our kids seems dysregulated or even just a bit flat, one of the first questions we ask is ‘Are you hungry?'” she says.

“We find when children have full tummies they can make better choices. It’s easier for them to concentrate, they can regulate their behaviour and they’re not lethargic, and that all impacts them in such a positive way.

“Having these sandwiches from Eat Up means we have something ready-made that we can just grab for them whenever they need it.”

IMS is calling on corporate groups to join them in rolling up their sleeves and making sandwiches for children in need, with groups only needing to commit to one hour. To get involved contact IMS.