Feeding more than 100 prepared meals to the chooks after freezers stopped working was devastating for The Big Bake Up, but community spirit has prevailed with Indian Kitchen at Hope stepping in to help.
The Wakefield charity’s co-founder Melissa Woodhouse says a team of volunteers had worked hard on the Friday before Anzac Day to cook and freeze meals, only to lose them due to a switchboard failure at the town hall.
“We dreaded it and knew it would happen one day,” she says. “Watching all the meals go to the chickens was not very nice.”
Then Indian Kitchen at Hope offered to replace them all. Owner and manager Arun Kumar says the team was gutted to hear what had happened after so much volunteer effort had gone into preparing the food. Helping out was a simple decision to help the community.
“Since we’ve opened, we’ve had so much support from the local community, and this is our way of saying thank you,” he says.
“We’re a small business, but it will make a big difference to the people who get those meals.”
Arun says the same community spirit applies when someone turns up at the restaurant seeking food but is unable to pay for it.
“We’ll always feed them. No questions asked. They turn up and they’ll get a meal.”
He met with The Big Bake Up team last week to discuss replacing the lost meals and says the restaurant will continue supporting the charity whenever needed.
Melissa says it was fortunate that large blocks of frozen venison in one freezer kept those meals frozen, but meals prepared the previous day by six volunteer cooks were in another freezer that thawed.
She says that the Hope restaurant helped out during last year’s floods to get meals to the community and the charity is hugely appreciative of the support.
The Big Bake Up provides meals to nominated people in the community facing challenges, such as an illness or injury that leaves them unable to cook.
“We’re trying to create what our parents did for their neighbours and friends – they made a meal to help out,” she days. “People don’t always have time to do that now.
“We still get referrals coming through and pump the food out, but we’re not getting that sponsorship as much.”
The charity is continuing to seek sponsorship for meals, as well as fundraise for kitchen facilities in a building it has leased next to the hall.
Donations can be made to The Big Bake Up Charitable Trust bank account, 03-1354-0650822-00.
