Beata Stednik, better known as BB to her friends is a private cook and freelancer who uses food to create joy and love among all walks of life.
Ms Stednik is the project manager for ADRA Casey and QV Community Café and strives to help those most vulnerable and people in crisis.
The café began, “about 6 years ago – what started with a massive pot of home-cooked hearty soup and a bun, evolved to be a healthy spread of home-cooked meals”, explains Ms Stednik.
“Currently we provide meals at QV every second Friday from 7pm onwards.
“Our meal program is available to all that are in need of food and any other support.
“We refuse food to nobody; you never know what’s happening in someone’s life just by looking at them.”
“No religion, no gender, no race, no social status matters to us…”
Ms Stednik prides herself in treating everyone equal, and expresses that through home-cooked meal distribution.
The distribution happens on the side of the road on a foot path, and the QV team provides their own tables, plates and cutlery.
The meals distributed include vegetarian meals, vegan meals, roast veggies, rice and potato dishes, salads and BBQ styled meals, among other things.
The café receives food donations from companies like Simplot, Nandos stores, Second Bite and the local Coles.
However, Ms Stednik says that the program hasn’t been able to receive any donations due to the recent pandemic.
“We have 600 clients begging for at least bread. We have families that are on sugar cubes and stale bread for dinner. It’s heart breaking.”
Grand Prix to the rescue
“… the week of the Grand Prix I got a text from one of the chefs from Food&Desire asking me if I would be interested in some food.
“Knowing first-hand how many people are out there without food, I couldn’t say no and let it go to waste.
“We made arrangements to pick it up the next day at 8am.”
Ms Stednik emphasises that the program was donated a significant amount of food from Food&Desire.
“My van was full to the roof.
“I came back home, unloaded [the van and] called other teams that do the same work as ours, and by 12pm [the food] was all distributed.”
“I am so grateful to Jenine the pastry chef, that she thought of Casey ADRA Café.”
To check out the work that Ms Stednik and the team does, head to their Facebook page: @ADRACommunityCafe