SYDNEY (dpa) – The big, yellow van rolls up outside a church hall in a poor Sydney suburb where Brian Willott and his volunteers wait to carry in boxes of surplus bread, vegetables and fruit donated by an Australian supermarket chain.
''We've got about 50 families here in Airds who are doing it tough, and this makes all the difference,'' said Willott, an officer of St. Andrews Anglican Church. ''The feedback we're getting can make a grown man cry.''
OzHarvest is a charity that Sydney businesswoman Ronni Kahn set up in 2004 that has since gone national. It picked up 1,600 tons of free food last year and distributed the equivalent of 5.3 million meals at a unit cost of a dollar a meal.
Kahn's skill in cajoling contributions from corporate bigwigs is legendary. Caltex pays for the petrol, Mercedes-Benz gives a free van for each one purchased and a property company donates office space.
''I don't want to take public money and spend it on things other than the delivery of services,'' Kahn said.
Last month, Kahn got 136 chief executives together under a marquee and partnered them with top chefs to cook food for the poor, the troubled and the homeless. The event raised more than 1 million Australian dollars (1 million US dollars).
''We think it's a great way of getting a lot of attention for OzHarvest, and it allows a lot of business people to understand these issues as well,'' Qantas Airways chief Alan Joyce said. ''It gets charity awareness up and gets more meals to good use.''
Qantas is a big donor of ready meals from its airline kitchens, and Joyce appeared clearly under Kahn's spell.
Running her own top-shelf events management company taught Kahn that masses of food were going to waste just because the logistics was not there to match supply with demand.
''There was food left over, and I was creating it,'' she said. ''Yes, some of it I was giving away, but there was no scale. It was very random.''
OzHarvest organizes the collections and food drops efficiently, making sure the produce is safe to eat and protecting donors from litigation. There are pay-offs for companies like Qantas.
''By making businesses more mindful and giving their staff the opportunity to be more mindful is that concentric circles of giving,'' Kahn said. ''Unless the staff have come on board, it doesn't matter what the business leaders say. It just wouldn't happen.''
At supermarket loading docks, for instance, staff could just as easily throw food in the dumpster as save it for collection.
Khan lobbied successfully to have a law changed to shift legal responsibility to rescuers like OzHarvest.
''It means donors can give away food without any fear of liability,'' she said. ''It puts the onus on the recipient as well as us.''
Drivers like Mathias Bahner who call on supermarkets, cafes, restaurants and food factories only take food that is in top condition.
Sometimes soup kitchens catering to the poorest of the nation's poor find themselves with Australia's best produce.
''They sometimes aren't sure what to do with a zucchini, and they sometimes only want white bread, but you have to go with it and do it their way,'' he said.
Kahn dreamed up OzHarvest after venturing into Soweto during a trip back to her South African hometown.
''I'd been thinking about doing something,'' she said, ''but I hadn't been galvanized into action.