Thank You Our Big Kitchen End of Year Party Banner

I thoroughly enjoyed my time at Our Big Kitchen as a specialized volunteer in focusing as a Public Relations assistant from November 2024 to December 2024.

These are some of the wonderful articles I wrote for Our Big Kitchen in Bondi, NSW, Australia.

Day in the Life of Community Kitchen Volunteers

Serving Meals from Bondi to End Food Insecurity in Sydney

“The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.”
Mahatma Gandhi

JUST two weeks into my volunteering as a journalism and public relations assistant, I learned the generosity and time volunteers played a part in helping Sydney communities be well-fed during the cost-of-living crisis. Our Big Kitchen remains a non-profit community kitchen established with a single aim: to nourish, inspire, and change lives. Within the Bondi neighbourhood, volunteers come from far and wide, from living a few steps away from the kitchen to volunteers in the St George region or Northern Sydney. The words they describe their community efforts to serve healthy meals to malnourished communities across Sydney include therapeutic, fun, creative, and rewarding. Kevin, a community volunteer living in Northern Sydney and a retired Macquarie Bank employee, starts from 8 am to noon and has more or less agreed with the gracious rewards of volunteering:

“The community services we provide are such a joy and fulfilment. Our Big Kitchen organise groups and individual volunteers to prepare healthy meals and volunteer their time, demonstrating the power of giving back to the community.”

As a former Rose Bay Secondary College student studying in the Eastern Suburbs area, I was unaware of the volunteering acts that Our Big Kitchen performed in Sydney communities, not just the Bondi Neighbourhood. Our Big Kitchen was founded by Rabbi Dr Dovid Slavin and Laya Slavin in February 2005, when the Slavins decided to do some communal cooking and have never looked back since. From borrowing a kosher kitchen and getting together a group of volunteers to cook, do the food shopping, and pack and deliver the food, Our Big Kitchen is a leader in the community kitchen without government funding. That is right. Our Big Kitchen’s Rabbi Slavin secured a donation of services from the construction industry to help with a building task for the ages. It was not only Jewish workers on-site who, along with members from the Greek and Italian communities, supported the project to create a community kitchen for communal cooking and meal preparations for those in need in Sydney by volunteers.

Initially, I volunteered during a cost-of-living crisis to gain work experience in a not-for-profit organisation environment and learn more about the field I studied. I got more for what I bargained for. The communications and public relations field around not-for-profit organisations and charities like Our Big Kitchen deserve praise for giving back to the Sydney communities through the hard times. Volunteering for a community kitchen is rewarding, but from another lens, charity organisations need more volunteers and more corporations to prolong Our Big Kitchen’s inspiring story. No matter the organisation’s size, food donations to spare time to witness first-hand the difference Our Big Kitchen contributes daily are welcomed. And believe me, Our Big Kitchen is the good one.

Finally, volunteering is as simple as putting your hand up in a classroom. Monday, high school boys around the Eastern Suburbs learn about Our Big Kitchen’s partnership with the Salvation Army. Friday, corporations such as Salesforce and high school boys from Sydney Technical High School lend a hand to community volunteers in creating delicious meals not for their studies or their time but for the power of giving back. In the morning, at 8 am, on any other day, you can start making delicious pastries to prepare for the day ahead. Our Big Kitchen primarily has two groups—one in the morning and one in the afternoon. You have head chefs David and Joseph leading the charge for a successful day of creating meals, assigning each meal to make meals to be served to malnourished Australians and judged to see who wins out of all teams. You can end the day by cleaning the kitchen and helping the team prepare for the next day. Days can end after 3 pm, but helping out and volunteering can cheer you up because your community impact is vital to ending food insecurity in Sydney. So, are you interested in volunteering for Our Big Kitchen?

Our Big Kitchen is located at 36 Flood Street Bondi NSW 2026 Sydney, Australia. Visit our website at https://www.obk.org.au/ or see below to scan and view our social media for more information and to join our community.