Petrol eating food money

By Tania Martin
THE rising cost of petrol is causing residents to dig into their food money, according to a Pakenham community relief service.
Captain Christopher Garcia of The Salvation Army in Pakenham said that people were struggling to find the money to drive to support services because of rising petrol costs.
Capt Garcia said part of the problem was that people were spending the money they had put aside for food on petrol.
He said the number of people struggling to make ends meet was also increasing every week.
“We are trying to help people as much as we can, but we have found that some people have just enough money to come here for assistance and not enough to get home.
“People are struggling to get to where the support services are, and the rising price of petrol does wipe them out,” he said.
4C’s Foodbank director Jeni Mathieson also said, that hills residents were being put into a situation where they need to access food from the food bank, but haven’t got enough money for petrol to get home again.
The 4C’s Foodbank (Cardinia Community Churches Caring) has been running for nine years and Ms Mathieson said the demand for food was increasing each day.
She said people living in Emerald, Cockatoo and Gembrook were all feeling the pinch of the rising petrol prices.
She said behind Pakenham, the hills area was the food bank’s biggest area for people needing assistance.
“We are finding a lot of people need food, but they also need petrol and in some cases they don’t have enough petrol or money to get back home again,” she said.
Ms Mathieson said the problem of how best to service people living in Gembrook, Emerald and Cockatoo areas was worrying for 4C’s.
“Even people living locally in Pakenham don’t have that extra money for petrol,” she said.
She said she had seen the petrol and food crisis coming for several months.
She said with the increasing daily demand for petrol, many people cannot get home but they need to come to Pakenham for food assistance.
“It makes it very hard for us, we are all volunteers and don’t have the money to run people or food up to Gembrook or Emerald.
“What we really need is another food bank centre open in one of those areas, but we just can’t afford to,” she said.
She said residents in the Shire of Cardinia could get assistance by showing their shire identification card.
“We can help people six times a fortnight but, if they need more than that, we can refer them to our budgeting counsellor, who can have a closer look at their financial situation.
Capt Garcia said people would benefit from having an emergency relief service in the hills, but that funding was needed before that could happen.
“It would be excellent to have services that could link those in the hills as well as those living in the Pakenham area,” he said.
Meanwhile, Cockatoo Primary School has also been providing its own food service to hungry children.
The school’s breakfast program has been running for the past five years and provides for children who come to school hungry.
Principal Darrelyn Boucher said now the weather was cold there was an increase of children who attended the breakfast club in search of a hot drink.
The breakfast club targets children who come to school without breakfast, who have slept in and didn’t have time to eat before coming to school, and those who have run out of food at home.
“There is definitely a link that more learning takes place when children have basic needs such as hunger met,” Mrs Boucher said.