Hi everyone, I’m Madie, the new Communications Coordinator for The Community Grocer. I have the difficult task of replacing Isabella who has done an outstanding job of keeping you up-to-date with all our goings on over the last eighteen months and managing to spread cheer throughout our online community, but I will do my best!
As the financial year drew to a close we have been reflecting on the last twelve months here at The Community Grocer. This also marks the same amount of time I have been with TCG so it seemed fitting I take you through what we have been up to.
1000 Fruit & Vegetable Boxes to People Living in Locked-Down Public Housing Estates
Russ Shields and Dr Sandro Demaio from VicHealth packing boxes for residents living in locked-down housing estates.
I began volunteering at the Fitzroy market in the middle of July, an exceptionally difficult time for many Victorians. I was fortunate enough to begin my volunteering with Tess, our General Manager, who has a wealth of information on all things food justice related.
Hundreds of boxes being loaded for delivery to residents in locked-down housing estates
Just as we ticked over into July, Coronavirus had started to take hold again after we’d slowly made our way out of lockdown. At the time I began I heard from Tess that The Community Grocer were able to prepare, pack and deliver 1000 boxes of fresh, nutritious and culturally appropriate fresh produce to residents of public housing estates in Flemington, Kensington and North Melbourne that had been locked down. Considering we previously had a market on the Flemington Housing Estate this was particularly close to home for TCG and we were so glad we were able to ensure residents had access to high quality fresh produce. You can read the whole story here.
Online with Open Food Network
Contents of a customer box order placed through Open Food Network
The year 2020 was all about adapting to the twists and turns COVID-19 threw our way, and by getting all our markets up and running on Open Food Network we were able to provide the option for contactless pickup to our customers. This allowed us to keep our community safe while still giving people the option to purchase one-off boxes or subscriptions for a variety of mixed fruit and/or vegetable boxes. For more information on how to order through Open Food Network, click this link.
Partnering with Fawkner Commons and Inner North Foundation
Michala and Leah volunteering at Fawkner Commons as part of their Master of Dietetics placement with Monash University
After having to close our Fawkner market due to complications associated with COVID-19 we were fortunate enough to partner with Fawkner Commons for the second half of 2020. During this time 1453 boxes and over 1000 cartons of eggs were distributed from the Fawkner adapted market. This included 243 boxes that were provided free of charge to people experiencing food insecurity with help from additional funding from Inner North Foundation.
We have a CEO
CEO Russ Shields at our Fitzroy Market
In September of 2020 our founder, and previous chairperson Russ Shields came on as CEO to support the team, signifying a new phase for The Community Grocer and strengthening our commitment to support local communities during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Carlton Recommences
Photo by Assemble Papers of a customer and child at our Carlton market
Photo by Assemble Papers of a customer at our Carlton Market
We reopened our Carlton Market in October 2020 after being forced to close for two months as our space was being used for COVID-19 testing. Being our flagship market for so many years, it was hard to know that our loyal customers were unable to attend our markets, and difficult to see how much of an impact closing had. Thankfully, we are now seeing more and more friendly, familiar faces return to our Carlton Market each week. While there may still be the unfortunate case of having to suspend our markets for a week here or there in order to keep our staff, customers and community safe, we are very thankful to be an essential service that is able to operate weekly, even during lockdown. We were featured in Assemble Papers about just that, earlier this year.
Pakenham market relaunched
I began volunteering at our Heidelberg West market in August with our Market Manager and qualified dietitian Nadhirah. It was in October that I heard the good news that through our ongoing partnership with VicHealth we were able to reopen our Pakenham market at our new site Outlook Community Centre Pakenham. Nadhirah then also became the interim Market Manager at Pakenham while the market was getting back up and running. You can hear all about the reopening of Pakenham in our interview with ABC.
The Community Grocer team: Isabella, Nadhirah, Russ, and Tess at the relaunch of our Pakenham Market
With the help of additional funding from Moving Feast, we were able to provide 200 boxes free of charge to seven food relief agencies in December. We are so thankful to have been able to do this at a time of year when economic barriers to fresh fruit and vegetables can be such an issue.
Victoria's Disability, Ageing and Carers Minister- Luke Donnellan, CEO of the Community Grocer-Russ Shields, and CEO of Foodbank- Dave McNamara announcing the Grocer Gift pilot at our Fitzroy Market
Grocer Gift Funding and Pilot
In January of 2021 we were lucky enough to secure a grant from the Victorian Government as part of the Community Food Relief Fund to further develop our innovative new voucher program, the Grocer Gift Program. Our program was used as the example of the types of projects that were funded and Luke Donnellan MP announced the recipients of the grants at our Fitzroy Market in January.
After developing the web platform, consulting the community to design the branding, and working with our community partners to guide the processes, we began piloting the program with our existing partners cohealth at our Fitzroy and Carlton markets. Moving Feast provided the initial seed funding and the City of Melbourne have also contributed to the project.
Our logo and tagline from the rebrand
The Community Grocer’s Rebrand - A Fresh New Look
Madie at our Pakenham Market in front of one of our new banners
It was in February that I was fortunate enough to come onboard as the new Market Manager for the Pakenham Market. The things I had learnt during my time volunteering; from displaying our fresh fruit and vegetables, to packing box orders, and conducting price comparisons, have been truly invaluable in my role as Market Manager. This was also an exciting time for The Community Grocer as a whole as we began to go through a rebrand. This rebrand includes updated logos and a fresh look to signify a new era for The Community Grocer.
Monash University Partnership - Student placements
Each year we are lucky enough to have students studying their Master of Dietetics at Monash University conduct a set of yearly evaluations. The results of this year’s Impact Evaluation can be found here. We were so glad to see that 86% of our customers still feel more connected to the community because of our markets, even after this difficult year of distancing.
Results from our Impact Evaluation Survey conducted by Masters of Dietetics students at Monash University
We are so happy with how much we were able to achieve in the last financial year, given all the obstacles that were thrown everyone’s way. We are looking forward to another year of serving fresh, high quality, affordable, and culturally appropriate foods to our customers, and helping to build healthy, connected communities.