78,000 Free Meals, 115 days: The Story of Sikh Volunteers Australia
Photo: Sikh Volunteers Australia/Facebook.
By Rushani Epa
The sun is shining, the conversation is flowing, and ideas are brewing. Jaswinder Singh sits in a backyard with his friends in late 2014, their minds unaware of how momentous this day will be. It all starts with a simple question: “Where do you think we will all be in ten years?”
Just a month prior, Singh moved to Australia with his family from Haryana, India, in hopes of providing his family with opportunity and a better life, but what he didn’t realise was that he was about to make an impact on the lives of thousands of Australians.
“‘We should start doing something together to ensure our future generations will have something to rely on. We must plant our roots in the soil we are living on, so why don’t we do something?’ We asked ourselves. 16 of us friends, all first generation migrants, some of us were Permanent Residents, some of us weren’t, none of us were citizens, and we were all thinking if we start something where do the resources come from? Who will support us? Who will trust our organisation? So we decided to start by donating our time, not money, because we didn’t have enough at that time,” Singh says.
The mechanical engineer, father, husband and proud member of the Sikh community is passionate about family life, and these values carry on throughout the 170-member strong organisation Sikh Volunteers Australia of which Singh is a founding member and the current acting Secretary.
A few discussion-filled days passed, and the group of friends created Sikh Volunteers Australia and registered it as an incorporated organisation. The next steps were to reach out to different councils and not for profit organisations in the City of Casey, and offer to help out with their events by managing their parking lots and helping with the set up or pack down of equipment. The City of Casey gave them their first big break, by inviting the organisation to volunteer and help set up the annual Lynbrook Lake Lantern Festival.
From then on, the team built rapport with the community, and it was in 2017 that they took the next step and explored the possibility of offering free food. The group were influenced by the langar, a community kitchen found in Sikh temples, or Gurudwaras. The purpose of the langar is to offer free vegetarian meals to all visitors without any discrimination, it’s a place which welcomes and unites people of all religions, castes, nationalities and genders.
We know how to cook it [food], we know how to serve it, and to do so without discrimination, because it’s in our genes.
“Our ancestors said if our society can’t sit together and eat together, how do you think that society can progress?” Singh says. “One way to break barriers is to come, sit and eat together. When you eat together, you’re not just sharing food, you’re also sharing an unspoken bond, that you have broken bread with this person on the same ground, in the same place, and you can’t distinguish yourself from each other because you’ve done the same thing. That’s the kind of community spirit we live by. We know how to cook it, we know how to serve it, and to do so without discrimination, because it’s in our genes.”
The team got together to commence working on their free food project, invested $1000 each in a food delivery van equipped with a bain-marie, and were granted the appropriate council permits. They then rented Lynbrook Community Centre’s commercial kitchen two days a week to cook meals in, and would station their van in sporadic locations including Frankston twice a week, and offer hot food to those experiencing homelessness and those who had lost their jobs.
Photo: Sikh Volunteers Australia Free Food Van/Facebook
Stock pots (L-R) containing vegan chickpea curry, white rice, pasta in the Sikh Volunteers Australia Kitchen.
Be nice to everyone. Speak with passion, speak politely.
“We now send out notices on our media and Facebook pages, and ask people to register with us to receive free food at their doorstep,” says Singh. Using a software system called Routify, the app acts like UberEats and provides their delivery drivers with intel on what needs to be delivered, and compiles the information of those who have placed orders.
“We knew that once we started this it was going to be the start of something big,” says Singh. Since its conception, the free food van has been spotted offering assistance during major Australian events, with standouts being the recent Victorian bushfires, the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and the more recent public housing lockdown in Melbourne.
“The lockdown has been hard, because of the restrictions around gatherings and the implication on cooking. The hardest part around an organisation is gathering the volunteers, and then you need to schedule them in such a way where there’s a limited number of people on site at a time. We realised though that this is not impossible, and on top of that we received support from the City of Casey and Victoria Police who have been helpful. Plus the community who donated things in abundance too, especially with the restrictions on purchasing groceries at supermarkets. We’ve found that if everyone buys what they can from each store and donates it, then it’s possible.”
Since March 18th, 2020, Sikh Volunteers Australia have been offering their free food service every single day, and have provided 78,000 meals to the community in just 115 days. That equates to just under 700 meals per day. Prior to this they were serving up 300 meals per week.
The average price per meal is valued between $5 to $10 which doesn’t take into consideration the cost of labour either, and the organisation does it all for free. There’s also 25 vegetarian meals which they offer on a fortnightly rotation and can be stored for longer than meat dishes. Dishes include curries, lentils, Punjabi dishes like saag, Indian desserts, and the team have started catering to other cultures and now offer pastas, sandwiches, cookies, pizzas and more. On top of this, they also cater to dietary intolerances, and make sure to list all ingredients on each container so consumers know what they’re eating.
The organisation no longer hires the commercial kitchen, and have recently built their own on their premises in Devon Meadows. Because it’s new, costs are piling up as they make use of gas bottles to power their stoves, and still require a cool room. They also continue to rent bulk machines to make dough and chop vegetables.
Sikh Volunteers Australia’s new kitchen.
“All our volunteers are unpaid and contribute financially on top of the time they offer, and there’s 2,000 members of the community who regularly contribute too,” he says. They post a call out on their Facebook page when they’re running low on ingredients, and also have their bank account details listed if anyone wants to donate money.
“If our families weren’t supporting all of us, there’s no way we could do it,” says Singh. “There’s a lot going on behind the scenes, there’s a lot of people behind us who aren’t publicly recognised. In my case, while I work, my wife is looking after our kids, the house, she’s doing all these jobs and undertaking responsibilities from purchasing groceries to dropping the kids off at school and picking them up, preparing meals, and so for us she’s doing everything, but she’s not seen by the media. Because of the cooperation of our families, and our community, we’re able to do this.”
While family and community are two pivotal values of this organisation, they also want people to abide by the rules during the statewide lockdown, and to reach out to one another. “Isolation is not easy to get through, especially for elderly people. Speak to your neighbour and if you can relieve their stress, no-one else might know you’ve done that, but you in your heart know what you’ve done and that you’ve helped someone,” says Singh. “During our service we have realised there are people out there who just need someone to speak with, who are so lonely with no family and are living alone. They just need a bit of love.”
He also has advice for those who want to help their community, but don’t know how to. “Search around, there are plenty of options available to help people. When we started this organisation this was exactly the same situation we were in, at that time we wanted to do something, but didn’t know how. Maybe you can do something on your own, or you can collaborate with someone else. There are a lot of organisations and agencies out there who are doing so much wonderful work, if you start working with them one way or another you’re giving back to the community. Search for organisations operating in your area, search through government resources and once you find something, start doing it. Or, if it isn’t possible, just be nice. Be nice to everyone. Speak with passion, speak politely.”
Stay up to date with Sikh Volunteers Australia via their Facebook page, or donate via bank transfer using the details below:
Account Name: Sikh Volunteers Australia
BSB: 063 595
Account Number: 10732130
Bank: Commonwealth Bank