St Stephen's Uniting Church Early Bird Cafe

Early Bird Café was established about 8 years ago by a group of volunteers who were concerned about homelessness in Sydney city.

Early Bird Café remains a 100% volunteer operation, funded by donations and grants we can obtain. We recently received a wonderful sponsorship from Woolworths. Our food purchases come from Foodbank, Oz Harvest and Woolworths.

We serve a hot breakfast to the homeless and hungry of Sydney city each weekday morning. We also provide frozen take away meals and enough snacks to last the day, as well as clothing, toiletries, books, knitted hats and blankets etc. Our volunteers include the NSW Governor, as shown on the attached pic. Each morning we serve 80-100 hot meals, many more coffees and snacks, and have 6-8 volunteers involved.

Rotary Sydney cove have been a strong supporter of Early Bird Café since its opening, providing volunteers for 1 morning a week for the last 8 years as well as funds for capital equipment (Commercial fridge) and wonderful support whenever its needed. At the moment, Rotary are managing deliveries and stock take each week, no mean feat!

To set up a community food program you need a great deal of support in

• An identified and agreed need in the community, thinking through what food is required and when. Many food programs provide a local foodbank where hampers or similar are handed out.
• Premises with an industrial kitchen and storage space, if you want to serve meals. Ultimately somewhere meals can be eaten inside.
• Funding
• Volunteers and supporters, strongly connected and communicated to
• A structured charity with a constitution and Board, registered with ACNC, and able to accept tax free donations
• Lots of energy, commitment, patience, sense of humour and a commitment that can move mountains

Free BREAKFAST (take-away during the COVID-19 regulations) is served MONDAY TO FRIDAY 7am to 8am from the 197 Macquarie St steps. Anyone can come.
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JOIN THE TEAM:  The aim is to have enough people on the team to serve once a month (more if you would like). Expressions of interest or enquires can be emailed to office@ssms.org.au or phone  (02) 9221 1688
 
THE HISTORY:
The Elders and Church Council of St Stephen’s Uniting Church, with support from City Community Care incorporated, a registered charity in Sydney, teamed up to house the Early Bird Café in the Ferguson Hall Monday to Friday from 6am to 8.30am. We commenced in September 2019. The Early Bird Café offers meals to people who are homeless and those in restricted circumstances.
 We have taken care to have conversations about security and care of the heritage building. 
 
The café has a volunteer staff supported by teams from companies in the city who volunteer their time. Such companies are Mirvac, Woolworths, Woolmart, and Brookfield, as well as organisations like Sydney Cove Rotary, and Food Bank. St Stephen's Uniting is providing a team too.