Canowindra Food Basket has celebrated their 16th year in operation helping the community.
Volunteers from the Canowindra Community Connections celebrated the 16th anniversary on Friday, 17 October.
Food Basket is a service providing affordable groceries and fresh fruit and vegetables to our community to help with the increasing cost of living.
All money from the service goes back into our community in the form of the ongoing provision of Food Basket, hampers to assist those in times of need and other programs including sponsoring training and providing workshops and services to the community.
Food Basket was started by the Canowindra Uniting Church and came out of the Home Group Met.
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Canowindra Community Connections' Beck Carter said they wanted to set up a service to meet the food needs of the community.
Ms Carter said they brought the idea to the Uniting Church who suggested a food service, and then they started running it as an outreach program under the name Food Basket.
Volunteers behind the creation of the Food Basket went to other community pantries around the region and based some of their operations on that.
Canowindra Community Connections' Jacquie Dredge said the Food Basket is run by volunteers who want to give back and help the community.
While the pantry does accepts donations, they run on a cost basis and put any funds raised from the affordable groceries back into running the food basket.
Ms Carter said they are always open to and in need of donations which allows them to giving food out to those in need.
The Food Basket also works with other groups such as the Canowindra High School's hospitality class and produce gardens occasionally donating fresh meals and excess produce.
Currently Food Basket has 20 volunteers who work across the two days the community service is open to the public.
Ms Carter said the more that people come and shop there, the more they can give back to the community.
Over the last year, Ms Carter said they were able to put just under $15,000 back into the community through kindness boxes, sponsoring people to attend training courses and funding programs.
"We could do even more if more people came and shopped, they're not taking away from people in need," Ms Carter said.
Along with providing affordable groceries, the Food Basket also provides kindness boxes for people in need.
The Food Basket is open every Thursday and Friday.
To find out more about the Food Basket and what services they offer the community, reach out to Canowindra Community Connections or head online to follow their Facebook page.
