Youth branch members of St Vincent de Paul – aka Vinnies Youth – helped redirect about 13,000 free school lunches during last week’s level 3 lockdown in Auckland.
The recipients – Auckland pensioners – were reportedly “stunned” to receive the lunches.
About 8,000 free school lunches were ready last Monday and another 5,000 were ready on Tuesday.
One of the pensioners said residents of the 86-unit retirement village she lives in were “overwhelmed” when Vinnies volunteer Beau Takapu (pictured) turned up with the unexpected lunches.
“Our age group is outside the school lunch age group,” Maureen Picknell (73) said.
“When I saw how wonderful the school lunches were, I was stunned – what an amazing meal!”
Vinnies Youth Auckland is a social justice youth group has branches in the city’s 16 Catholic secondary schools.
The lunches the young Vinnies were delivering were donated by Montana Catering Auckland.
Montana Catering is one of four companies with Ministry of Education contracts to provide free school lunches to 35,000 children in the most deprived quarter of school communities across Auckland.
All four companies found ways to donate the lunches to the community.
One, Albany-based Virtual Cooking Company (FED), gave its lunches to needy whānau through Ngā Whare Waatea Marae in Māngere.
Another, Spotless, gave its lunches to the Auckland City Mission.
The fourth contractor, social enterprise Eat My Lunch, gave 10,000 lunches to marae and other community groups recommended by the Ministry of Social Development.
Source
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News category: New Zealand.
