Cade Lucas
Sometimes even the helpers need help.
Werribee South’s Phillip McDonald is well known for assisting those in need.
During Covid, Mr McDonald founded food charity Feeding Families, providing meals to homeless people around Wyndham, something he’d been doing informally in the years prior to the pandemic.
As the name suggests, the main focus of the charity is food, but it’s far from the only one,
with Mr McDonald also helping people with furniture, clothes and pretty much anything else they need but can’t afford.
“The only thing I don’t do is pay people’s bills,” he said on the limits of his generosity.
It’s a comment that is grimly ironic given if anyone needs help with their bills it’s Mr McDonald himself.
“Like I’m spending 90 per cent of my income helping Feeding Families,” he said.
“I’m spending between nine to $15,000 a week in food.”
While running a charity which delivers meals seven nights a week, Mr McDonald somehow finds time to work three jobs, which along with food and money donations, he uses to keep the operation afloat.
But as the cost of living crisis has taken hold post pandemic, the number of people needing help has him struggling to keep up.
“It’s getting worse and worse every week,” said Mr McDonald in a recent interview with Star Weekly.
“Like tonight I’ve had to do 215 families and that’s delivering to people’s houses as well.”
On average, Mr McDonald estimates Feedling Families serves around 190 to 200 meals a night, with deliveries made throughout Wyndham and even further afield to Geelong and Torquay.
After serving Protective Services Officers at train stations across the western suburbs too, Mr McDonald said he sometimes doesn’t get to bed until 4am.
It’s exhausting just reading about it, but thankfully Mr McDonald gets plenty of help, with more on the way.
A recent interaction on Facebook put him in touch with Werribee’s Craig Bisson, who himself has been assisting the less fortunate around Wyndham and has now joined forces with Feeding Families.
“Craig taken on helping with the meals at night for the homeless guys and girls in the streets and in front of Coles,” said Mr McDonald who is now able to focus on delivering food elsewhere, including to homeless people camped along the Werribee River.
“And we just had another lady who’s going to come on and do meals for us at local train stations once a fortnight. And her brother is going to do hair cuts for us once a month.”
Anyone interested in helping Mr McDonald or donating to Feeding Families visit: www.facebook.com/groups/feeding.families.australia
