Showing love with food

Our Big Kitchen
Passionate. Selfless. Compassionate.

Our Big Kitchen (OBK) with its familiar red, green and orange logo is one of those feel-good organisations that add soul to a suburb.

The big heart behind the industrial-sized Bondi kitchen is Laya Slavin, who co-founded it with her husband, Rabbi Dr Dovid Slavin.

Supported by volunteers from every walk of life, they have turned their wish to do good into a tangible reality that is far bigger than the 70,000 nutritious meals they provide a year.

Mother of eight Laya exudes positive energy and radiates compassion, warmth and non-judgmental acceptance, bringing magic into her volunteer work.

On most days, Laya is either in the kitchen cooking with people of all abilities, delivering food to people in need, visiting someone in hospital dressed up in a costume or being a shoulder to cry on.

Laya has also started a wig library for women who have lost their hair from illness.

During the recent bushfires, Laya brought together volunteers from a melting pot of suburbs across Sydney to create thousands of personalised biscuits and handwritten messages of thanks, love and compassion for victims and firefighters.

Volunteers poured into the kitchen to help in any way they could. Firefighters also came to express their appreciation.

Westfield Local Heroes are nominated and voted for by their communities, with the three top finalists per Westfield centre each awarded a $10,000 grant for their affiliated organisation. Our Big Kitchen will use its grant to buy kitchen equipment and to contribute to delivery costs.

For further information on the Westfield Local Heroes program, click here