By Mariella Totaro-Genevois

In 2022 the VDSA Lunch Project Group for the ASC in Newtown will celebrate its 10th birthday, and notwithstanding the disruption and distress provoked by COVID-19, as I will illustrate later, there is definitely cause for being proud of its work and achievements during very difficult times.
So far, the VDSA Lunch Group has always succeeded in meeting the growing and quantitatively unpredictable demands of ASC lunch guests thanks to its unfailing and generous approach, and even during the COVID-19 new and volatile circumstances our team’s response has remained steady and productive:

  1. Firstly, on three occasions the scheduled groups instead of our traditional monthly lunches, have delivered generous food and toiletries provisions to the ASC collection point. The shopping list, for a value of over $100 each time, had been compiled according to the instructions appearing on the ASC website.
  2. Secondly, in March, April and May we have offered the usual lunches in Newtown, because at that stage we were allowed to do so.
  3. Thirdly, when the late June NSW lockdown blocked again our cooperation with the ASC, our resourceful President, Vittoria, asked me to write a letter to the VDSA Membership with the aim of raising funds. If successful these funds would allow us to purchase food-vouchers for as many as possible refugees and asylum seekers, whose situation had become even more critical due to the prolonged lockdown.
    The response of VDSA members and friends to this appeal was astounding, in a few weeks $12,180 were received. This unexpected, substantial result has allowed VDSA not only to strengthen its assistance program for existing beneficiaries such as the ASC, but also to include a larger number of their clients who were reached directly and independently by our association.
    Finally, as the restrictions relating to COVID 19 are gradually easing, our commitment to provide regular monthly lunches for the clients of the ASC has already resumed since February, and the first face to face lunch took place on March 17. The ASC Staff really looks forward to our physical return to their premises, and our teams are equally keen to resume and continue our ‘nourishing’ collaboration with them