Dan, the Foodbank delivery man

Students are struggling and there’s one man who’s become superman of Student Wellbeing at Holmesglen Institute.

Holmesglen provides students the chance to come into any of the main campuses and access free food provided by Foodbank. The demand has increased since COVID-19 hit.

Now, the need for food is as high as ever and one man who is delivering the wonderful service is Holmesglen’s Welfare Officer, Daniel Shaw or better known as ‘Dan’.

Dan came up with the idea to begin delivering food hampers to students who are in desperate need, once a week as they have lost their jobs, have no income and weren’t able to buy the necessities they need each week. But once the word was spread, the service has taken off incredibly.

First, let’s talk about Dan specifically.

In the past two to three months, no one has worked as hard as him but he does it because he genuinely cares about the wellbeing of each and every student he helps.

Dan takes care of many students who are experiencing financial hardship, have accommodation issues and are struggling to make ends meet each week. He fights tooth and nail to get these students the support they need.

With that, he is adding in pick-ups from Foodbank and other community organisations such as the Royal Melbourne Golf Club, FairShare, RACV and Hampton Community Centre, delivering food to the major campuses and preparing hampers for delivery.

For one man, there isn’t really much time to do all of this by himself.

Now, with the food deliveries taking off, there became a need to add more delivery days. So, he increased it to two days a week, further reducing his time in the office.

More time on the road and less time in the office means a lot more work piling up, resulting in late finishes.

Late finishes come at a cost, losing the opportunity to go home and be able to put his daughter to sleep, leaving the duties to his heavily pregnant partner.

When Dan talks about this, it’s visible how much it hurts him, the tireless effort he puts into making sure every student feels welcomed and supported which means he doesn’t see his daughter.

It’s an ultimate sacrifice.

So far, Dan and his team have been able to deliver almost 300 food hampers across the state, ranging from trips to Altona, Epping and Pakenham, sometimes all in one day.

Adding to the hampers, the team has now delivered over 500 frozen meals to students and is growing rapidly.

Dan will hate seeing this written about him, because he believes he doesn’t deserve any credit for the job that’s been completed but without him, none of this would have happened.