Bendigo Foodshare simply could not operate without our three vans. As we say they are “powered by our community”.
They all play a major role each and every day to provide food to the community. All three vans have different responsibilities, each as important as the other. Collectively the vans average 2000 km each week.
Without our volunteer support the vans just wouldn’t be able to operate. Combined the vans have roughly 18 pairs of volunteers, that’s 36 individual volunteers each week.
Benny
Meet Benny, short for Bendigo. Benny is sponsored by many businesses of Bendigo and is dressed with around 25 of their logos. Benny is our oldest van and was purchased in January 2015 after the van we were loaned from Foodbank Victoria met with the end of its life.
He is our largest van, and because of this does 85% of our out of town deliveries, proudly advertising the local supporting organisations along the way. Benny averages over 1,000km/week and visits much of central Victoria and surrounds, including Kyneton, Echuca, Maryborough, Kyabram, Beaufort and many towns in between. Benny can comfortably fit 3 pallets of food. Because of his size he also does large pickups from some of our donors.
Goldy
Goldy is our newest van, purchased in October of 2020. Goldy is named as such because Agnico Eagle Australia’s Fosterville Gold Mine is a major supporter of ours, continually helping us support the community. Fosterville Gold Mine recently donated $20,000 to help with the rising costs of distributing food across Victoria. Thanks to team Agnico Eagle!
Goldy’s main role is to rescue food from supermarkets 6 days/week and bring it back to our warehouse in Long Gully, where it gets sorted. Goldy does 52 food rescues and averages 500 km each week with 6-7 sets of drivers.
Between busy supermarket rescues Goldy finds time to do some local client deliveries and pickups as well as retrieving stock from our storage locations.
Agnico Eagle Australia is a major financial supporter of Bendigo Foodshare, assisting with the build of our new home.
Chook
Chook was purchased in January 2018. Chook obtained its name due to the continued support we receive from Hazeldene’s farm through both sponsorship and donations. Thanks Hazeldene’s!
Chook rescues food from supermarkets 6 days each week, averaging 45 rescues and 500km/week. Chook also does a considerable amount of deliveries to local partner organisations. Similar to Goldy, Chook also does some local pickups from partners and storage locations, when needed.
Hazeldene’s is a major financial supporter of Bendigo Foodshare, assisting with the build of our new home.
