Instead of preparing for Christmas with wife Leanne and their kids last December, the Salvation Army’s Major Lincoln Stevens was executing a plan to deliver 15 pallets of food from Woolworths Group’s regional distribution centre in Queensland’s Townsville to an evacuation centre in Cooktown in the wake of Tropical Cyclone Jasper.
Partnering to support communities in the face of natural disaster
3 min read
“The team at the Woolworths Group’s distribution centre went the extra mile and worked through the night packing pallets to have it done in time,” says Major Stevens, the SAES Response Coordinator for North and Far North Queensland.
“They were brilliant. I was so impressed. To pull that off overnight, so the pallets were ready for the next day, was amazing. Woolworths were ready!”
The pallets of food (which included dry goods, chilled and frozen foods), plus four additional pallets of equipment, were then transported to Cairns Airport in Woolworths trucks, loaded into Chinook helicopters and flown to the evacuation centre in the Cape York Peninsula.
“This operation was one of the biggest we have done in Queensland,” says Major Stevens. “We may have catered for more people during the Brisbane floods, but the logistics were so different this time because we had to airlift everything in.
“We were told there was no food in the town and that we would need to bring all of our own catering supplies, cooking supplies and food.”
For three weeks, Major Stevens and his team prepared three meals a day for 250 people who’d been evacuated from the devastated rural town of Wujal Wujal. The Salvation Army saved Christmas by cooking a special festive lunch with all of the trimmings for the devastated families.
“There was so much joy on their faces,” recalls Major Stevens. “It was an absolute pleasure and honour for myself and the volunteers to help those who were going through a very tough time.
“Even though they had lost everything, there was still so much joy and happiness on their faces as they ate Christmas lunch."
“It just wouldn’t have been possible without our partnership with the Woolworths Group. The support they give us is just phenomenal.”
