The Good Grub Club (GGC) has been serving the Hepburn Shire community for 8 years since 2018.

The GGC is 100% volunteer run and all services to the community are free.

It has been a significant and important meeting place for the local community, especially those doing it tough. The GGC’s purpose and mission is to provide much-needed support for members of the Hepburn Shire community who may be struggling to make ends meet and experiencing food insecurity and isolation.

The support is currently provided through:

  • an open pantry which allows patrons to shop for hamper items including non-perishables, bread, fresh fruit and vegetables, meats, and cooked/frozen meals
  • the fortnightly distribution of prepacked food hampers to individuals and families who cannot attend in person
  • a free and nutritious community lunch every Thursday (also take away)
  • the support of any additional community walk-ins on each day of operation and emergency after hours services
  • offering GGC members/patrons a welcoming, safe, familiar, and stable community of which they feel a part of and supported
  • Regularly providing our premises for Cafs mobile Thread Together program to offer new clothing for our patrons

In early 2025 the Good Grub Club had to relocate from our previous location in Central Springs Road to our current location at 79A Raglan Street Daylesford 3460. Despite being in a smaller and likely temporary location our amazing team of volunteers adapted, and we have been able to maintain and improve the services previously offered to the community.

Along with the relocation we moved to an open pantry model which allows patrons to shop for hamper items directly from the open pantry, rather than being given a pre-packed hamper. This has been a huge success as patrons can now select what they want to take home from the pantry. Patrons have overwhelmingly supported the change, and in fact tell us it’s much more empowering for them as they make the choice on what to take home and it has also significantly reduced waste.

These positive changes have also enabled us to expand the range of pantry products offered and reach more people in need in our community. In fact, the number of families we support has increased by almost 40% to almost 100 families. Sadly, this number is growing weekly.

So, who does the GGC currently support in our community?

Total households supported:                    95

Total individuals supported:                     147

Families (with 2 to 6 people):                    25 (26%)

Singles:                                                          70 (74%)

Weekly visits to our open pantry:             25-30 patrons per week

Thursday lunches                                        20-30 patrons per week

The future looks exciting for the GGC, as we are currently working on our final move to a permanent home at the Daylesford Neighbourhood Centre. This move will ensure we can continue to offer our vital services and purposefully expand or adapt them to meet community needs, and critically, it will provide us some surety over our future.  A kitchen upgrade will commence shortly and will have more to say about this exciting move as it progresses.

In the meantime, if anyone needs us, please call us on 0475 430 326 or drop in on a Thursday between 11am and 2pm for the open pantry or a delicious lunch with great company.

The GGC could not operate without our amazing team of volunteers, donors and our supporters including Bendigo Bank Daylesford, The Daylesford Community Op Shop, The Daylesford Foundation, Rotary Club of Daylesford, Uniting Church Daylesford, Bakers Delight, Istra Smallgoods, Daylesford Meat Co, Coles Second Bite, Foodbank and Bendigo Foodshare.