A new food truck, purchased by the Greater Sydney Conference health department, has had its first opportunity to serve the community at the San Carols on Sunday, December 8.
Volunteers for ELIA Wellness served hundreds of community members at the local carols hosted by the Sydney Adventist Hospital, selling healthy food and fruit to attendees. Some of the healthy items being sold included plant-based protein balls, watermelon cubes, bottles of water and smoothies. According to organisers, the food truck was a big hit—their “Tropical Breeze” smoothie being the biggest seller, with the protein balls a close second!
The new “Wellness Hub Food Truck” belongs to the Health Department at the Greater Sydney Conference. The Health Department purchased the food truck two weeks prior to the event with the idea of using the truck to help them run various wellness initiatives around Greater Sydney.
The health truck initiative was led by Dr Christiana Leimena-Lehn (Health director, Greater Sydney Conference) and Dr Geraldine Przybylko (Health Strategy Leader, South Pacific Division and executive director, ELIA Wellness), in partnership with ADRA.
Due to the growth of ELIA Wellness and the increasing number of Wellness Hubs being established across Greater Sydney, having a portable ministry on wheels was seen as an invaluable investment. This truck will hopefully provide a great opportunity for all ELIA Wellness Hubs (wellness-promoting churches and schools) to connect with the community by selling smoothies and healthy food.
“The ‘Wellness Hub food truck’ is a new way to have a mobile wellness presence across Sydney, delivered by friendly Adventist volunteers. Sydney, look out!” said Dr Leimena-Lehn.
The team also recognise the support of Pastor Darren Slade for helping in the search for the food truck, the enormous effort of Wahroonga church member Doedie Fatt and the Geelong church team, with Pastor Jeremy Taituave and Michelle van Egmond, who have operated a food truck for some time, for their guidance on the set up for the event.
“We are so grateful to God for opening up the doors to make the GSC/ELIA Wellness Hub Food Truck possible in such a short period of time and have so many volunteers willing to help out,” said Dr Przybylko. “While serving in the food truck, many customers commented that it was great to have a healthier option to purchase food and were supportive of this initiative. Our vision is to see ELIA Wellness Food Trucks in every conference in Australia and New Zealand to engage with the community and promote whole-person health.”
Jade Rasmussen, a food truck volunteer at the San Carols, reflected: “I was so excited when I heard that the GSC Health Department were going to be running a Food Truck! It’s an engaging and effective way to promote the health message to the community. I thoroughly enjoyed serving customers at the Carols and had so much fun serving alongside my fellow volunteers.”
All of the proceeds from the day went towards supporting the Greater Sydney Conference Health ministry which serves to educate communities around Greater Sydney to improve health and wellbeing.
ELIA Wellness provides education on lifestyle medicine and multiple health initiatives which are aimed at enhancing life satisfaction and wellbeing. If you would like to partner with the Greater Sydney Health Department or find out more about their food truck, send an email to: gschealth@adventist.org.au or visit their website at https://bit.ly/WholisticHealth. To become an ELIA Wellness Hub in your community, you can reach out to ELIA Wellness via email at: partner@eliawellness.com.
