“Groundbreaking” talkback call sees hunger hit the mainstream

A talkback caller to ABC Melbourne kicked off a food drive at the Southbank-based broadcaster when he said he hadn’t eaten for days recently. Charities say the need for food aid across Melbourne, particularly in suburbs like Southbank, is acute.

At the end of May a young man phoned in to an ABC 774 discussion about job-seeking services and told presenter Raph Epstein he hadn’t eaten for three days and was drinking water to make himself feel full.

“John from Ringwood” also said he suffered from anxiety and found it hard to seek help.

After the call the ABC had been inundated with calls and messages about John, the broadcaster later said, and a decision was made to launch “an old-fashioned food drive” to help people in a similar situation.

The “Meals for Melbourne” appeal, backed by charity Foodbank and expected to last until Friday June 12, but possibly longer, invites people to either drop non-perishable items at Café Laku at the ABC’s Southbank Drive studios or make a financial donation via an online shopping feature on the Foodbank website.

Foodbank CEO Dave McNamara told Southbank News he thought the on-air conversation had been “in some respects groundbreaking”.

“I think John’s an incredibly brave guy to be willing to tell his story on the radio and share his life, and he obviously did it in a way that resonated with a lot of people … and the community has rallied around him,” he said.

Many people didn’t recognise the extent of the problem of food insecurity, Mr McNamara said, with demand for Foodbank aid across Victoria increasing 10 per cent since the start of the year – from 69,000 meals daily to 76,000 now, and the figure looking unlikely to drop.

His organisation – which supplies 70 per cent of Victoria’s “emergency food”, both via other charities and directly – was “hamstrung by limited resources”, he said, while problems putting food on the table were “now impacting nearly every stratum of society”.

“Every food charity needs help right now to meet this demand,” he said.

After small regional towns and the metropolitan outskirts, inner-city suburbs such as Southbank, where a lot of students, particularly international students, live, saw some of the most extreme need, he said.

And many of those struggling to feed themselves, such as John, had never needed help before.

“So, a lot of the calls we’re getting are from first-timers who just don’t know how to navigate the care system and how to get help,” he said.

At the Empower Australia food relief centre in City Rd, run by staff are seeing 1100 people a week in a three-and-a-half-hour period every Sunday when the supermarket-style facility is open, a spokesperson said.

That number was a 15 per cent increase on last year, and 60 to 80 new recipients were signing up weekly to the Planetshakers Pentecostal Church-run service.

Empower’s figures showed 40 per cent of aid recipients were from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, a category which included elderly people, while 35 per cent were students and 25 per cent were working individuals and sole parents.

Over in Port Philip, Uniting Church reverend Alex Sangster runs a free weekly community meal for more than 100 people in South Melbourne and is involved with or aware of a range of “extraordinary organisations all over the place doing food and emergency relief and meals”.

Many of the church groups in the Port Philip area were now spending pretty much all their time and energy feeding people, she said.

If it wasn’t for the faith communities of St Kilda and Port Philip, there would be devastation in terms of hungriness.

In addition to donating to appeals and volunteering, Reverend Sangster believes people need to look at the causes of the problems.

“Let’s start having a bigger conversation as Australians about what the hell is going on,” she said.

Meanwhile, for John, at least, life has taken a dramatic turn for the better.

A few days after his initial call he phoned back into Raph Epstein’s show, reporting that he had been treated to a roast meal and connected with food relief services, and was feeling very grateful for the degree of care and concern he had sparked.

“It was really overwhelming but really beautiful to see that kindness out there in this world still exists,” he said, telling listeners; “if you’re in the same position as me … please reach out, because someone will always be there to reach back.

“There are people out there that want to help.”

To make an online donate or find out where to get food visit Foodbank. •