Carmelo “Charlie” Desira has been volunteering up to 30 hours a week delivering hampers and collecting, sorting and handing out food at the Loaves and Fishes food bank in St Albans for the past 23 years.
In recognition of his unfailing dedication to the community, Mr Desira was awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) in this year’s Australia Day honours list.
Also honoured was fellow St Albans resident, Valentina Brjozovkia, who received a Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) for her services to the Russian community.
Mr Desira, 78, began volunteering after being approached by a priest at Holy Eucharist Catholic Church in St Albans, who asked him to open a food bank for refugees and the poor.
“I wanted to help. In the 1990s while working in Melbourne’s CBD, I would talk to homeless people and vowed to try and help them one day. This was a way for me to help those in need,“ Mr Desira explained.
Every Friday Mr Desira and other volunteers give out hundreds of food parcels to those in the community most in need.
“We started out in 2000 collecting food donations for refugees who had just arrived here, but as time went on we realized that it wasn’t just those who were new to Australia who were struggling. A lot of people in the community were in need,“ he added.
“The foodbank grew over time, and now we provide hundreds of food donations every week. People can collect them or we can get them delivered to them. Eighty per cent of the food we as volunteers provide ourselves and the rest is very generously donated by the Salvation Army. We hope as time goes on it will continue to grow.
“It’s a gift doing this volunteer work. I thank God that he gave me this opportunity to do it.”
