Thank you for your interest in individual, ongoing volunteering at FareShare in Melbourne. Please enter your contact information:

Minimum Age Requirement

Please note, all volunteers must be aged 16 years or over.  Volunteers aged 16 and 17 must be accompanied by a responsible adult at all times.  This adult must also register as a volunteer (or be an existing volunteer).

Abbotsford

Our Abbotsford kitchen aims to cook more than 5,000 meals per day.  As a kitchen volunteer, you will be supervised by a chef to assist with basic kitchen tasks such as cutting vegetables and packing meals.  No formal training or professional experience is required.  Please note that kitchen volunteers must be physically fit and able to be on their feet for the duration of a shift (approximately 3 hours).

Kitchen Shift Times:

• Monday to Friday mornings (9.00 am to 12.30 pm) – weekly or fortnightly
• Monday to Thursday afternoons (1.30 pm to 5.00 pm) – weekly or fortnightly
• Friday afternoon cleaning (1.30 pm to 3.30 pm) – weekly or fortnightly
• Monday to Thursday evenings (6.30 pm to 9.00 pm) – weekly or fortnightly
• Saturday mornings (8.30 am to 12 noon) - monthly
• Saturday afternoons (1.00 pm to 4.00 pm) - monthly

When you are invited to become a kitchen volunteer you will be asked to complete a Volunteer Agreement and an online food safety training course and let us know your shift availability. Then we will invite you to attend an information/induction session.

We are currently very fortunate to have a large number of people on our waiting list for kitchen volunteering.  It is likely to be a few months before we are able to invite you to become a volunteer. 

Thank you very much for your patience.

FareShare runs early morning packing shifts in our kitchen, where a crew of up to 8 volunteers packs the thousands of frozen meals made the previous day ready for distribution to front line charities.  You will be on your feet for the whole 90 minutes.  Lifting and bending are required.

Vacancies arise during the year.  You will be contacted when we have vacancies.  

When you are invited to become a packing volunteer you will be asked to complete a Volunteer Agreement and an online food safety training course and let us know your shift availability. 

Packing Shift times:

• Monday to Friday morning (7.00 am to 8.30 am) – weekly or fortnightly
• Saturday morning (7.00 am to 8.30 am) - monthly

FareShare grows more than 60,000 kg of vegetables each year to add nutrition to our meals.  FareShare has volunteers helping in our kitchen gardens to assist with growing vegetables for use in our kitchen.  We currently have three kitchen gardens, one of which is a working farm where we produce more than 80% of our annual crop.  Our kitchen gardens are located in Clayton South, at Moorabbin airport and in Abbotsford. 

Baguley Family Farm, Clayton South

This kitchen garden has a small number of vacancies throughout the year. However, it is may be a few months before we are able to invite you to join a regular shift.  Thank you very much for your patience.

The work at Baguley family farm is physically demanding and you will be working outdoors in all weathers.  You will be on your feet for up to 3 hours.  You will need to be physically fit and be able to complete strenuous tasks such as digging, weeding, planting and lifting.

Please note that Baguley farm is not well serviced by public transport.

Baguley Shift Times:

• Monday morning (8.00 am to 11.00 am) – weekly or fortnightly
• Tuesday morning (8.00 am to 11.00 am) – weekly or fortnightly
• Wednesday morning (8.00 am to 11.00 am) – weekly or fortnightly
• Thursday morning (8.00 am to 11.00 am) – weekly or fortnightly
• Saturday morning (8.00 am to 11.00 am) – monthly

When you are invited to become a Baguley farm volunteer you will be asked to complete a Volunteer Agreement and let us know your shift availability. 

Abbotsford and Moorabbin Airport Kitchen Gardens

Volunteer shifts at Abbotsford and Moorabbin airport kitchen gardens are currently full and have very long waiting lists of people waiting to volunteer.  We are not currently accepting registrations to volunteer in these gardens.

Please complete this additional volunteer information to help us find you the most suitable opportunities of interest.