Australians are highly generous people. According to The Charities Aid Foundation’s 2022 report, Aussies are ranked as the fourth most generous, out of 119 countries surveyed. Per capita, Australia is among the wealthiest societies on the planet, and on average, three in five, make some form of charity donation each year.

Similarly, Australia is a country of mateship. We often show a sense of community, particularly in times of crisis. One only has to look back at unprecedented events in recent years, to substantiate this. The “Black Summer” bushfires of 2019/2018 that ravaged 5.4 million hectares of New South Wales, resulting in 33 deaths. Or the Queensland floods of 2010/2011 that impacted 75% of the state, declaring some areas disaster zones, killing 33 people with three bodies never recovered. Each event often labelled “natural disasters” saw hundreds, if not thousands, of fellow Australian’s helping out the men, women and children in affected communities, by donating money, food or clothes, their time to help in the cleaning up, or volunteering in other ways to support however they can. And while every state and territory have its own State (or Territory) Emergency Service (SES), collectively there are 43,000 volunteers across the country.

Based on this, giving back and supporting those doing it tough is one of an Aussie’s best qualities. Despite the “new normal” of cost-of-living pressures, inflation, youth crime, war combat on the other side of the world and political uncertainties, we must continue to lend a hand to our fellow Aussies, often strangers, when things get tough. But how do we choose which charity to support?

Generally, we pick charities that are more obvious, often health related, and while not undeserving, we are leaving out many silent heroes in our community, who need just as much recognition. They are the ones with simple hypotheses but who make a real and almost instant, difference. This month it’s all about Eat Up which was founded by Lyndon Galea.

Eat Up, was born from a newspaper article addressing this problem. Lyndon Galea, learnt that children were going hungry, leading to fatigue, problems concentrating, disruptive behaviour and poor learning outcomes. Compelled to help, Galea manifested a simple solution to a complex issue. And while that was in 2013, current circumstances affecting Australians 11 years later, still indicate that 1 in 5 Aussie children experience  food insecurity, while the need for food relief services has increased by 47% post pandemic.

It’s a cause dear to T-Houses owner and businesswoman Tina Nettlefold’s heart (pictured above with Eat Up founder Lyndon Galea). She joins other Aussie philanthropists, celebrities and corporates donating their time (as well as financial support) to charities, which helps underprivileged Australian children to be nourished with no end in sight to the stresses on society where a sense of struggle is the new normal.

It’s an alarming statistic that 20% of children start their day without eating breakfast, and 15% arrive at school with no lunch. More distressingly, such statistics are not necessarily isolated to lower socio-economically disadvantaged households/communities, government school students or regional areas. Children of various backgrounds or circumstances, both in primary and secondary year levels, are considered to be living in food insecure households. The reported number is approximately 1.3 million children up to the age of 17 (out of the 5.1 million in the country), but with  no end in sight, rising cost of living pressures will continue to affect Aussie families and their budgets, and some children will still find their lunchboxes empty.

Sending our children to school unfed and with no lunch, has a significant ripple effect that leads to more problems in a child’s developmental and growing stage of life. It can affect attendance rates, academic performance and their sense of wellbeing, leading to petty crime, violence and mental health issues. Eat Up’s mission is simply to help improve Aussie schoolchildren’s learning opportunities and education success and give them a better chance of development. With the help of philanthropists like Tina  Nettlefold, Eat Up has wrangled the support of other Aussie corporates to help their plight, while celebrities including George Calombaris, Olympic swimmer Mack Horton, footy legend Brendan Fevola and a number of Supercar racing champions, donate their time.