Delivering prepared meals to clients' front doors isn't a new idea for a food business, but one social entrepreneur has taken the concept to another level. Rachel Golding's growing enterprise provides support in the form of prepared meals to families dealing with disabilities.
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Like many mothers, Alison Austin of Baulkham Hills has a busy life running a household: cleaning, shopping, ferrying her three children to school and to extracurricular activities — piano and singing lessons and swimming — as well as working five hours a week and preparing family meals.
Nothing too unusual, except one of Alison's nine-year-old twin girls, Ashlea, has cerebral palsy and suffers a chronic illness, so she needs a lot of extra help.
In addition, Alison's husband Murray has an acquired brain injury, suffered after a bout of unconsciousness after surgery to remove a kidney to donate to his ill daughter.
Murray can no longer work, and also needs help with daily tasks.
While ever positive and stoical, Alison says some days it feels like she is the only adult in the household.
Her friend Rachel Golding, also from Baulkham Hills, came up with an idea for a social enterprise business to deliver prepared evening meals to busy households, and use a portion of the profits from paying customers to supply free meals to families living with disability.
"With two healthy evening meals each week, it takes a lot of the pressure off," Alison said. "We all like the food, and the meatballs and the lasagne are favourites."
As a postdoctral fellow, Rachel had previously researched family and disability and strongly believes women caring for disabled family members are made more vulnerable by that circumstance.
"These women are doing the juggle too, often with fewer resources and greater pressures," she said.
The Austins are one of several families on the receiving end of the largesse of Dinner on the Table and Rachel has plans to expand to support "many more" vulnerable families across Sydney.
The business rents commercial kitchen space to prepare meals from Castle Hill Bowling Club, which Rachel says is keen to be involved with enterprises like Dinner on the Table.
A weekly email is sent to clients with menu details and meals are either large (enough for three or four adults) or small (enough for one to two adults).
Orders are placed by a Friday night and the meals are delivered on the following Tuesday. Click here for details.
