DONATIONS of food and money are “desperately” needed to meet a “huge” demand for a Canberra man’s covid food-relief service.

Garry Malhotra, 33, has used $60,000 of his own money since launching his meals and hamper service “Garry Malhotra – Ken Behrens Helping Hands” at the start of Canberra’s latest covid lockdown.

Since August, the service has cooked and delivered more than 150,000 free meals to those needing support during lockdown.

But stocks are almost depleted and “urgent” donations of food and money are needed to keep the service going.

“We are really struggling,” Mr Malhotra says.

“We desperately need food donations and if anyone wants to donate money they can do that, too.”

Thousands of meals a day are prepared by Mr Malhotra, members of his extended family and about 10 volunteers from a commercial training kitchen in Narrabundah.

Mr Malhotra – who is the CEO of course provider AIM Institute of Health and Sciences – says meals and hampers are then delivered by volunteer drivers not just to doorsteps but to staff at covid-testing and vaccination clinics and to the Canberra Hospital, Calvary Hospital and Queanbeyan Hospital. 

Volunteers have also started delivering meals and hampers to people in Queanbeyan, Bredbo, Goulburn and the Yass Valley.

“The demand is huge,” says Mr Malhotra.

“We were hitting 8000 meals a day at one stage but now we are back to 2000 to 3000 meals a day and 40-50 hampers a day.”

It costs between $4000 and $5000 a day for the service to prepare its meals and hampers.

One of the biggest challenges, Mr Malhotra says, is buying enough stock.

“We use about 200 kilograms of rice, 150 kilograms of pasta, 150 kilograms of chicken and 100 kilograms of vegetables a day,” he says.

“I publish a list of food items that we need on the Facebook page each week, so if anyone can donate those foods items like chicken, rice, pasta and vegetables it would be greatly appreciated.”

Mr Malhotra, who was born in India, posts each day’s menu to the service’s Facebook page and people can submit an order form.

There are two different meals offered a day, one vegetarian and one non-vegetarian, with the range including curries, stews, pasta and rice dishes.

The idea behind the food-relief service came to Mr Malhotra when he was in hospital recovering from an appendix operation.

“I was thinking about all the people, in particular the senior citizens during the lockdown and wondered what I could do,” says Mr Malhotra who then put a post on social media offering home cooked meals.

“Within a few hours my inbox was flat out.”

Initially, Mr Malhotra and his family were cooking and delivering the meals themselves with Mr Malhotra’s heavily pregnant wife and seven-year-old son also helping out.

“We have a lot of help now, but we could always use more volunteers,” Mr Malhotra says.

“Doing this makes me happy, I like to see people smile… but I am tired and I don’t have the capacity to keep using my savings.” 

The uptake of the meal service has been so overwhelmingly successful that Mr Malhotra would like to see it continue beyond the current covid crisis, recognising the fact that many people in the community would benefit from a nutritious meal on a regular basis.

“I’d like to continue this after the pandemic, we’d like to become a charity and offer meals on the weekends to the homeless or the needy from the training facility at Narrabundah,” says Mr Malhotra.

• To place an order for a meal or hamper, fill out a form on the Garry Malhotra Ken Behrens Helping Hands Facebook page.

• Food donations can be dropped off at the AIM Institute of Health and Sciences at 61 Jerrabomberra Avenue, Narrabundah.

• Donations of money can be made via the Go Fund Me website.