Cooking for 450 every night

by Adele Horin

Source: The Inner City Courier, Monday, 22 December, 2003

From his base in the grounds of Callan Park, Jeff Gambin prepares meals for Sydney's homeless.

Just beyond the sparawling tree-lined parklands attached to Callan Park, the serenity is broken by the frantic pace of a kitchen with soup on the boil and the preparation of hundreds of meals. It is just another day at Just Enough Faith (JET).

The man behind this kitchen that feeds Sydney's homeless every night, Jeff Gambin has been named Local Hero for metropolitan NSW in the 2004 Australian of the Year awards.

Mr Gambin said he found the 'hero' honour very humbling.

"It's a huge tag and a huge responsibility," he said.

'On JUly 24 we cloked up 10 years of helping the homeless and someone estimated we had made 1.4 million meals".

From running a restaurant to dedicating his life and savings to the JEF registered charity, Mr gambin's career change has benefited thousand of the most disadvantaged in society.

He describes JEF as the larget non-religious, non-political and non-funded organisation of its kind.

"We don't get corporate sponsorships and we don't get money from the governements, but we have in the last 10 years managed to take 1100 people off the streets and find them homes, got jobs for 850 peole and helped 130 kids go back to school," he said.

Mr Gablin's voice is filled with pride when he talks about one of his former street friends who is now at university doing a PhD in nuclear science and another young man whose parents threw him out of home.

He rang me the other day to ask if I would be in the church to see him get married," he said.

"He said I'm the person who is a father to him."

Everyday Mr Gambin and his team cook enough food to make 450 meals a night.

"That is about 380 kgs of food every day," he said.

"We load it into the van and take it ot Woolloomooloo where we feed veryone."

"Last week when it was pouring with rain, on fellow said to me: 'The sun may not come up tomorrow, but we know you'll be here'. We've never missed a single day. How could we? Now we do a menu with a minimum of nine dishes.

"The people like a choice and some of the cheeky ones say no to the chicken cacciatore because they had chicken korma the nihgt before and feel more like lamb or vegetarian."

Apart from the hot meal, the van provides a centre for social interaction.

"The food helps us break the ice so I can find out if they need help with other problems," Mr Gambin said.

When Mr Gambin first started his program of feeding the homeless he did the cooking in his own small kitchen but now they call Callan Park home.

"Premier Carr was instrumental in me getting those premises," Mr Gambin said.

"We have spent about 400,000 of our funds to put in a commercial kitchen and calssrooms, but it's worth it."

The education centre is used to teach courses such as hospitality, hotel management, horticulture and basic information technology.

"We also help people find employment and housing and offer counselling to break addictions," Mr Gambin said.

"There is no point feeding the stomach if we are not feeding the brain as well. If we were not educating people with qualifications for employment we might as well be throughing chips to seagulls."

When pushed, Mr Gambin admits times are tight financially.

Without a corporate sponsor, they rely on private donations and their rapidly-shrinking personal assets and investments.

"Sure, it's tough, but while I've still got breath in my body, I'll be there," Mr Gambin said.

"You know, some people are pushed to count the number of friends on the fiingers of their hands."

"Even if I was a millipede, I'd still run out of space for the friends I have."

Contact www.justenoughfaith.org or call 9818 8988. Donations are tax deductible.

Mr Gambin's voice fills with pride when he talks about one of his former street friends who is now at university doing a PhD in nuclear science.

Photo: Sam Mooy

Australian of the Year hero Jeff Gambin and wife Alina

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