Streets of Your Town: The Journo Project
Streets of Your Town
"Dig In" on cooking for the hungry since 2017
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"Dig In" on cooking for the hungry since 2017

In efforts to bring you a little lock down cheer and hope in the world, in this episode of Streets of Your Town podcast we meet a group of people who cook home made meals for the homeless—rain, hail, or pandemic shine.

“Dig In” hasn’t missed a single service to the people who eagerly await their homely meal, with hundreds of volunteers on the roster to cook every Saturday since it was started by four school mates on October 28th, 2017.

Now co-founder Lucas Ryals helps not only in the kitchen, but also coordinating the often complex logistics behind the scenes to enable Dig In to expand to other struggling areas around Queensland.

“It began the four of us and our friends and our family, we used to rock up there on a Saturday and we used to buy all the ingredients ourselves out of our own pockets and sort of just have a big cookup really,” Lucas says.

“Since then, it’s sort of evolved into this massive operation where we’re partnering with a number of other charities.

“We’ve got a couple hundred volunteers on our books and actually just touching on that now, it’s extremely encouraging to see that we’ve got no shortage of volunteers.

“So I think that’s extremely encouraging to see from the Brisbane community that people are willing to get in and help out.”

A joyous group of Dig In volunteers gather to cook every Saturday, in a humble commercial kitchen at inner city Brisbane high school St James College.

The wholesome meals they’re creating are destined for homeless people living rough in the city, who often yearn for but cannot access a freshly cooked home made meal.

“Dig In goes back to the start of 2017…with the view of just trying to become one of the most inclusive charities around the Brisbane and Southeast Queensland area and since then, it’s sort of just grown slowly bit by bit,” he says.

“So we started serving in Kemp Place, Fortitude Valley. Some of the people that we started serving there, we’re still serving today.

“We’ve now expanded into West End, we’ve got another service out there now.

“And then we also have our vending machine project...we’ve developed a vending machine to be able to roll out, hopefully across the state, over the coming months and years. Where we can broaden our outreach and start hitting some regional communities, feeding people more efficiently.”

Lucas and brand ambassador and fellow lawyer Brad Marland are now looking at expanding Dig In to the next stage—of providing their home made meals in specially designed vending machines accessible by the homeless with a special code, in towns far beyond the organisation’s Brisbane beginnings.

They’re also looking to expand Dig In’s service into high schools.

Dig In co-founder Lucas Ryals with Brad Marland, Dig In’s brand ambassador

Brad Marland is so impressed by what the young team has achieved with Dig In, he’s become brand ambassador, checking out options for vending machines on his travels to regional Queensland as far away as Bundaberg.

“Yeah, I’m amazed. Four young guys when they were 19, they started it—I could barely sit still personally at 19, so I’m just amazed at what they’ve done. You’ve gone from 40 meals to 700 in what, three and a half years, every Saturday afternoon.

“They were doing it every single Saturday day in, day out while they were working full time and studying full-time as 19 year olds.”

Lucas says it was a shock to them to learn how extensive a problem homelessness and poverty is, and how some students go without food for days. So they hope to set up a vending machine at Marsden State School in coming months.

“We began to understand the issues in our communities more. We obviously became aware of some of the issues that are facing these school students. And the link between things like attendance at school, grades and progression through into society and actually having a meal when they rock up to school,” he says.

“It’s really unfortunate—a lot of these kids come to school every day and they haven’t eaten in a couple of days.

“So, us as a charity, obviously we’ve got a massive homelessness focus and we have for a number of years now, but obviously we want to diversify and try and try and help anyone we can.”

The idea for Dig In was inspired by gathering around the table of the grandmother of one of the founders.

“We used to all go over to his Nonna’s house and she used to cook up these massive pasta meals,” Lucas says.

“There used to always be heaps of leftovers and like at this stage we were sort of aware of what was available on the streets for people.

“And while it’s gotten quite a lot better over recent years it used to only just be sandwich and coffee. So that’s where the initial Dig In sort of began—we wanted to provide these nutritious wholesome meals, like something that people could dig into, right?”

Find out more at Dig In’s website.

In other good news

With Antony “Stocks” Stockdale, co-host of the “Behind the Podcast” podcast

I was interviewed for the great podcast—Behind the Podcast! Hosted by the lovely Stocks and Jules from Diamantina Media. So if you want to hear some more about my Wandering Journo ways, this is a great place to start.

Behind the scenes

Seble Tedesse sharing Ethopian coffee with me!

It’s not often I get to enjoy an Ethiopian coffee ceremony as part of my interviews, but I think I’d like to do this more often!

Recently I had the pleasure of speaking to the incredible Seble Tedesse for another cracking episode of The Gender Card—the podcast I produce for Griffith University’s Gender Equity Research Network.

This special episode of The Gender Card podcast celebrates World Refugee Day, by walking through the multicultural streets of inner city Brisbane with Seble, and going to the Addis Coffee shop on the main street of Moorooka, where she is the managing director of South’s Community Hub.

Seble Tadesse’s community development work has helped hundreds of refugee families settle into their new Brisbane home.

And now her expertise in family and domestic violence intervention and prevention in the refugee community is being recognised by being part of the Queensland government’s consultations for implementing Coercive Control legislation.

Be encouraged about the future of the world by putting on your headphones and having a wander through Moorooka with me and Seble.

Bonus merch

Just in case you weren’t convinced to sign up for a paid subscription, here is an example of John Kerrison playing with a bit of the Wandering Journo merch those subscribers get!

Talk again soon my Wandering Journo tribe! Thanks so much for your ongoing support—and please share this with your friends.

Nance

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Streets of Your Town: The Journo Project
Streets of Your Town
From the Wandering Journo at Stories that Matter Studios this is The Streets of Your Town. The podcast that takes you on an audio journey through theatre of the mind highlighting a different slice of Australian life each episode.