2025 Meals on Wheels NSW Innovation Awards
IC Care's Shout a Mate a Meal program
Project Outline
Shout a Mate a Meal is a community-driven initiative by IC Care designed to ensure that no local resident goes hungry due to financial hardship, social isolation, or lack of eligibility for government food support programs.
The pilot initiative provides a platform for donation of meals in the Wollondilly MOW region to those that may be in crisis & currently ineligible for funded MOW service. The larger goal is to enable the donation platform to support more broadly vulnerable people in crisis situations, including the elderly, people experiencing homelessness, those affected by domestic violence, and individual’s ineligible for traditional government-funded food programs, as well as linking with all NSW MOW services.
The concept is simple and engaging local pubs, clubs, & restaurants display coasters with a QR code, allowing patrons to “shout a mate a meal “by making a donation. Funds raised go directly to supplying fresh, nutritious meals prepared and delivered by IC Care Wollondilly MOW service.
This initiative not only meets an immediate food need but also
- Strengthens community connection by giving locals an easy, tangible way to support their neighbours.
- Expands IC Care’s capacity beyond capped Meals on Wheels funding.
- Provides a scalable model that can grow from a Wollondilly pilot into a regional, statewide, and national campaign.
What was the challenge or need that led to this innovation?
Having service outputs capped and being told we’d have to turn away a 92-year-old client. It wasn’t something we could do, after Nicole Hanger from IC Care brought the issue to the attention of A Current Affair we were inundated with stories from across the country of capped services, and in some cases over their outputs by 150%. Researching this issue illustrated the need to create a sustainable community led option that could have impact n creating awareness of the need and giving a solution through the donation of a meal.
Steve Wisby OAM came up with Shout a Mate a Meal, the iconic SHOUT from our aussie language, that brims with mateship and sharing and translates to a very catchy marketing slogan that can resonate with the entire nation.
How has this innovation reinvigorated your service or an aspect of your service?
We are so excited by the up take from local hotels, clubs, restaurants, businesses and the general public, our service is being talked about on social media and other community groups have asked us to speak at events to explain what we are doing with the pilot and how we see this “ Shout a Mate a Meal” expanding. There is a buzz of excitement for the “what could be…”. Imagine if we link with every MOW service and used the marketing platform as a way to distribute funds across the land, imagine if we could partner with DV, Homeless, imagine, imagine… That’s why the pilot is so significant, if we can prove its worth and extrapolate it’s impact we can’t quite imagine the amount of good it could do.
In moving forward we would like to be able to propose our post pilot imaginings to MOW. It is something we have created, powered by IC Care , but it is something that is to share, and the only way it can be more is with MOW engagement and understanding.