Roz Knights is so excited she can’t keep stop smiling as an old aviation building on Bloore St is being transformed into the new Kyogle Community Food Pantry.

Roz managed the pantry as a volunteer for more than six years when it was at the Seventh Day Adventist Church, using the tight 40sq m space to help disadvantaged people.

When the new pantry is finished, the 190sq m building will have plenty of room for shelves of food, shopping trolleys, a packing area and storage for food supplied by hunger relief charity Foodbank.

“This is my way – through the Lions Club and my Christian beliefs – to give back to people,” Roz said. “In the past I’ve been helped by so many people.”

For a moment, Roz’s eyes fill with tears and then she smiles again as she looks up at the grey building and gushes about the local philanthropist who offered the site at a “phenomenally low rent”, she said.

The original pantry was started in 2004 by Peter Kalytis and Colin Abrahamson at the urging of the Kyogle community.

The Seventh Day Adventist Church has handed over the pantry to the Kyogle Lions Club who are helping with insurance and admin costs.

The listed historic building comes from Evans Head aerodrome and is one of many donated to communities after World War II.

Hasthorpe and Webb Engineering was the first business to occupy the space, then a seed and produce store and a car sales business. Now a team of volunteers led by Roz will unload and stock food from Foodbank to be on-sold to those in need at a third of the price.

“It is not designed to be a corner shop,” Roz said.

Pensioners, for instance, can buy their basics at the pantry for a cheap price and then go to the local supermarket for other goods.

All pantry clients are interviewed by Roz to ensure they are “in need”, she said.

Roz looks up at the new sign – Kyogle Lions Community Food Pantry – as if she can’t believe it.

She can’t wait to share it with the 500 people a month who use the pantry.

$30,000 of funding and goods has come from the community, $40,000 from the State Government, and Kyogle Cinemas have chipped in with 10m of seating for the site.

The official opening is on September 30.

How you can help

Help the pantry with rent and the buying of food by donating to:
Kyogle Lions Community Food Pantry
BSB 062 563
Account number 1017 4697

Call Roz on 0484 676 628 to organise fresh produce donations, details of which are recorded and kept according to health regulations.

This article appeared in the Richmond River Independent, 8 September 2021.