The Kitchen Starter Pack project has moved to the kitchen at the rear of the St Helen’s Community Centre. This venue, with commercial dishwasher, multiple sinks and lots of workspace, will allow us to make the project a cooperative venture.

We will meet on the 1st and 3rd Tuesday of each month, from 9.30am to 12.30pm.  Our first meeting is on 5 November. Please drop in any time from 9.30am to12.30pm to drop off donations. You can also stay a while or help clean and pack, or join us for morning coffee in the community garden at 11am.

View a list of items we include in the packs.

At present, the items we most need are tumblers and frypans – either structurally sound cast iron or stainless steel pans in any condition; or non-stick pans with coating in excellent condition. Please only deliver donations to St Helens’ during our booking hours. Donations left at other times will be considered illegal dumping and violate our hire agreement. If you can’t deliver during booking hours, you can arrange a pick-up by emailing me at kitchenpack@glebesociety.org.au.

Our move to St Helen’s was essential to make the Kitchen Pack Project more sustainable. Our move also breaks new ground for the City of Sydney (CoS). After food services at St Helen’s and other community centres ceased in July 2018, CoS indicated on its web-site that the kitchens would be made available for community use. Our St Helen’s kitchen booking is the first community booking of a CoS kitchen, and is backed by our successful Venue Hire Support Grant application. Our booking is for a one year trial, but we are optimistic that it will become a good long-term base for our project.

Diane Hutchinson
Project Coordinator

UPDATE (JULY 2021)

The highly successful Kitchen Pack Project has now been brought to a close. Since the end of 2017, we have supplied 80 packs to clients leaving Elsie Women’s Refuge and Rainbow Lodge for independent living in social or community housing.

The Glebe Society is very grateful for the support of its members and their friends who have provided their used kitchenware that formed the basis of the packs, as well as financial and other volunteer support since the start of the project. Special thanks goes to Diane Hutchinson for her dedicated effort over this time. Her closing report on the project can be read here: https://www.glebesociety.org.au/wp-content/uploads/Kitchen-Pack-Final-Report-June-2021.pdf