Stop homelessness the delicious way

100 million young people live or work on the world's streets.If you find this hard to swallow, use one of your life's 80,000 meals to help this stop by eating with us.

STREAT is a social enterprise providing homeless youth with a supported pathway to long-term careers in the hospitality industry. We run street cafes in Melbourne where youth get their hospitality training. Our food is inspired by street hawker food from around the world.

Our first mobile food carts are located in Federation Square. We're opposite St Paul's Cathedral, right next to the Melbourne Visitor's Centre. Have a look at the map and pay us a visit!

Blog

In the name of STREAT art

by Beck on 17 August 2010

My first day at STREAT as a Marketing and Communications volunteer was nothing less than an adventure!

The task: To visit Melbourne street artists with illusive names creating art in secret locations in order to collect generously donated art works for the launch of STREAT Cart 2 (it sounds like a Hollywood blockbuster but I can assure you it was more than that).

The explorers: Sunisa, head of STREAT’s Marketing and Communications team and her trusty accomplice Beck, both risking hours out-of-the-office to find artistic works. But hey, someone’s gotta do it!

The outcome: We zig-zagged through the lane-ways of Melbourne, stopping briefly for a much needed coffee. We continued on to our destination - a lane enclave covered with stencils, murals, stickers and the like.

We climbed through a door half the size of us when I couldn’t help but think I was on the set of Willy Wonka. However unlike Wonka, there was no wall of fruit stickers to lick, though I was tempted to suggest it. Instead, the humble bustle of Blender Studios, off Franklin Street, where some artists – Drewfunk, Ha Ha, Adi-- generously donate their art works to help out organisations such as STREAT.

The artist we were after, Drewfunk, informed us that the signs we were to pick up were not all complete so he invited us to ‘hang’ which we found quite a privilege. We got to witness a well-respected street artist at work, yay! When the artworks were pronounced dry we proudly carried them across the city to the STREAT office where an eruption of oo’s and ahh’s meant the artworks were most appreciated and loved!

If day one is anything to go by, volunteering at STREAT will require me to be super fit but it‘s definitely worth it.

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Comment

My first week at STREAT: an insider's perspective

by Dylan on 17 August 2010

Well my first week at STREAT was an interesting one. Meeting the team and the trainees the first day I got an impression of the kind of awesome energy that our glorious leaders have cultivated and invested into this fantastic organisation.

The trainees themselves were a little stand off-ish on the first day and I was a little wary as well, not quite sure what I was getting myself into, and while I’m still not quite sure, I know there is a fantastic network above and beside me willing to help in any way as I find my footing here at STREAT. That in itself has made the transition here worthwhile, although a little headsore in the first couple of days as the information kept pumping into my fragile mind.

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Sustainability conversations at STREAT

by Berrin on 17 August 2010

At STREAT our number one concern is to deliver a top rate experience for our trainees, but we are also passionate about sustainability and low impact eating. We have an open and ongoing dialogue with staff members and industry specialists on cutting edge and common sense ways to reduce to reduce our carbon foot print and spread awareness about green solutions. To this end, recently we met with Andy Jones (sustainability expert and all-round nice guy) to discuss strategies and ideas for making STREAT products as ethically and environmentally friendly as possible.

Some of the issues we covered where: food miles, using seasonal ingredients, justice and Fair Trade issues, and using organic produce where ever possible. One of the things we learnt was sometimes you have to weigh what’s better between a fully organically grown tomato driven down from Queensland or an in-season but pesticide-covered tomato grown locally? Another example Andy used was the plastic wrapped super market cucumbers actually use less packaging to get from farm to you than the unwrapped cucumbers!

We decided one of the best ways we can make an impact is by educating ourselves and the public as best we can and spread awareness. For instance it’s one thing us having fully bio-degradable spoons, garbage bags and soup cups etc, but if somebody buys a meal from us then dumps the container in general waste with a plastic rubbish bag it kind of defeats the purpose. We can conclude from this that another step we can take is convincing surrounding councils and businesses to use bio-degradable rubbish bags and separate recyclables where possible.

As you can see this will have to be an ongoing and in-depth process to reduce our negative impact and raise the bar for our positive impact.

Comment

Don't throw away your choices when it comes to food

by Anthea on 17 August 2010

How many things have you thrown away today? Did you make a cuppa before work and throw a teabag in the bin? Did you get a takeaway coffee and throw away a sugar packet, a stirrer and then the cup? Did you bring your lunch from home and bin the cling wrap that your sandwich was wrapped in? Did you buy your lunch and grab too many serviettes that went unused and into the rubbish along with the plastic cutlery and box?

Sometimes convenience also doubles as disposable. And sometimes disposable is unavoidable, especially when it comes to food; and this is for good reason, good health reasons. Not everything can be re-used but a good start to minimising waste, and therefore detrimental environmental impact, is to reduce. You can start this at home and start today. It’s super easy! How many things on the following list could you tick off this week?