The Luminary and Fred Hollows team at Oz Harvest in Sydney

Cooking for a Cause

Luminary lends a hand at OzHarvest to help nourish its food relief mission.

Clarice Greening

22 September 2024

2 minute read

Throughout February, May, and June, members of our team rolled up their sleeves in three different cities to participate in OzHarvest’s volunteer program, Cooking for a Cause. Together, we helped fight food waste and brighten the human experience by preparing meals for those in need.

Why OzHarvest?

Cooking for a Cause was our chosen not-for-profit program to support in Q2. It’s part of our wider Luminary Hands initiative, where we take a step back from our daily roles and help charities to achieve their missions. For OzHarvest, one of those is to advocate and inspire others to halve their food waste by 2030. 

OzHarvest's mission began in 2004 with a single food van in Sydney, where founder Ronni Kahn rescued food destined for waste and delivered it to those in need. Now, over 20 years later, more than 350 dedicated team members save over 250 tonnes of good food each week, distributing it to 1500 different charities.

We were shocked to learn that 3.7 million households in Australia experienced food insecurity in the last 12 months, which is more than the number of households in Melbourne and Sydney put together. 

Picture of what luminary team made at OzHarvest Melb 9 Feb

Cooking up a storm 

During our time in the kitchen, we learned from the chefs at OzHarvest how we can make a difference not only in our communities but also in our own households by reducing food waste and getting creative with leftovers. We prepared dishes packed with nutritious ingredients, from savory lentil and carrot fatayer pastries to yogurt dough, and packaged them up for local charities. We were invited to sample our creations, and we were pleasantly surprised by how delicious they turned out. It was safe to say that we would be making some of those recipes for our own families as well.

Group picture at OzHarvest

The team's thoughts 

Here’s what some of our team members had to say about their experiences: 

“Cooking for a Cause gave us an opportunity to bring our team together in a way that was not only lots of fun but gave everyone involved a sense of purpose, knowing that the food we were preparing was going to some really worthy recipients. The fact that it was also saving perfectly good produce from going to waste was the cherry on top. The passion of the volunteers that run the program was evident from the moment we walked in the door. It was really inspiring.” - Tami Iseli, Marketing Manager, Luminary 

“Supporting OzHarvest in Melbourne, Brisbane and Sydney was a delight and a fantastic way for our team to create a genuine impact in our communities.” - Marty Drill, CEO, Luminary

Team picture from OzHarvest Sydney May 24

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