19,750 people would have missed out if a Kempsey charity followed through with shutting its doors this week.
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Kempsey-based free food charity No Kid Hungry AU, also known as The Saving Place, was just this week looking to close its doors, cutting off free food supply to the 19,750 people the charity feeds.
No Kid Hungry AU, which relies heavily on free food donations from a business in Queensland, would have had to cease operations due to costly renting fees for the large containers that carry the produce via train from Queensland.
In order to transport the food from the Queensland business to the Macleay Valley, No Kid Hungry AU must rent large crates off the global pallet company CHEP.
The cost of renting the crates is too excessive for No Kid Hungry AU to subsidise and the Queensland food donor could not foot the bill either.
Founder of No Kid Hungry AU Dave Davis told the Argus earlier this week that he had pleaded with CHEP to open a charity account however, was unsuccessful and had to consider shutting down his operations.
“My suppliers have stopped sending free food for us to distribute because CHEP refuse to remove the cost of the pallets from our supplier’s accounts, and will not give us a charity account,” Mr Davis said.
“Our suppliers are amazingly generous but can’t be expected to pay these costs to supply us free food.
“This charity will come to a grinding halt if this multi million dollar company is not willing to be more flexible,” he said.
However good news arrived this week after Mr Davis appealed to CHEP Australia president Phillip Austin.
“I made contact today with Mr Austin who has contacted his staff all the way down to the local rep & state manager and instructed them to establish a free-of-all-fees account for our charity,” he said.
“Thank you very much Mr Phillip Austin for making CHEP a responsible corporate citizen!”
No Kid Hungry AU has a warehouse in Kempsey which houses nine to 10 tonnes of free food weekly available to any individuals or other charities and schools.
This week, No Kid Hungry AU signed up it’s 200th family in the Macleay Valley. Meanwhile, over in Coffs Harbour No Kid Hungry supplies free food to 3,740 families via the Loaves and Fishes Group. In Port Macquarie there are over 1,500 registered members.
No Kid Hungry also supplies food to the Macksville Food Hub and Salvation Army as well as 11 local schools, four feeding programs, women’s shelters and more.