Since 2015, not-for-profit organisation Heart & Soul Group has provided weekly food assistance to vulnerable families and individuals in South Australia. Now, more than 3000 members of our community are accessing nutritious meal ingredients, and are empowered to prepare quality food to suit their own palates.
Fresh fruit and vegetables, bakery and pantry items are presented for people to choose from at food relief cenres held in Wingfield & Noarlunga, with heavily discounted snack foods and other extras available for purchase from the dollar tables. People are also able to order online for home delivery at www.heartandsoulinc.com.au
The centre locations are a respectful and welcoming place for people needing food relief for varied and often complex reasons. Many of the more than 50 volunteers who help to operate the centres work alongside founder Eman Rahim (known to friends as Em) after having called on her for food assistance.
The struggle to feed herself and her children is a hardship that Eman understands first-hand. In the early 2000s Eman fled a Lebanese arranged marriage that became violent. Turned away by well-established charity groups for having been an alleged enabler of her abuse, Eman was drawn to shoplift from her local western suburbs supermarket to feed her then one-year-old child. Being caught by security staff proved to be a turning point in her life. The arresting officer offered Eman support and understanding in her time of shame and fearfulness, inspiring her to dedicate herself to “spreading the love to those who don’t necessarily feel it”.
“Heart & Soul Group exists to help people in our community by providing them with food to keep them going, allowing them to focus on other priorities. There is no judgement in any part of what we are offering. If a person is hungry and cannot otherwise access food, we will support him or her without question,” Eman said.
Heart & Soul Group is gratefully supported by a number of major supermarkets and other independent and commercial food suppliers who, along with donors and fundraising and corporate partners, are key to the organisation’s objective of redistributing complimentary or low-cost food to the community.
Further insight into how Heart & Soul Group is supporting the Adelaide community is available in the What We Do page.