Announcing your 2023 Westfield Local Hero

We are excited to announce Joanne Oliver from One Meal - It Makes A Difference as your 2023 Westfield Local Hero for Mt Druitt!

Westfield is proud to award a community grant of $20K to help Joanne and One Meal - It Makes A Difference to continue to grow their impact in the local community

The 2023 Westfield Local Heroes program will award 126 grants across Australia and New Zealand – totalling $1.26 million to support local communities.

Nominations for the 2024 Westfield Local Heroes program are open now. If you know someone who's making an impact, nominate them as a Westfield Local Hero - nominate here.

Your 2023 Westfield Mt Druitt Local Hero is:

Joanne Oliver

One Meal - It Makes A Difference

Selfless. Compassionate. Determined.

Inspirational Joanne Oliver volunteers many hours to provide up to 60 people with a weekly meal and a safe place to connect with others.

Joanne is the Blacktown Area Coordinator for One Meal – It Makes a Difference and hosts a community meal at Alpha Park every Saturday. She leads by example and is the first to arrive and the last to leave.
Behind the scenes, Joanne packs fruit and veggie bags, breakfast packs, personal care items and toys for patrons to take home or share with others. She often goes out of her way to deliver items to elderly or isolated people.

With her experience of needing financial and housing assistance, Joanne understands a person's situation can change in an instant and treats everyone equally with no judgment.
Joanne never stops thinking of ways to make life better for her patrons and helped arrange for the Street Side Medics and Orange Sky mobile shower and laundry service to operate alongside the meal service each week.

Being nominated as a Westfield Local Hero makes Joanne feel appreciated for the work she loves to do. “I am very motivated to reduce the number of people experiencing homelessness and hunger in our community.”

One Meal – It Makes a Difference will buy a commercial fridge and freezer and put the rest of the money towards food supplies, packaging and transport.

We'd like to thank and acknowledge our finalists who will receive a $5K grant for the organisation they represent...

Margaret Kelly from Foodbank

Super volunteer Margaret Kelly works four days a week at Foodbank NSW & ACT Glendenning, saving the charity tens of thousands of dollars in wages over the past five years. As the first point of contact for donors, Margaret helps the charity collect and distribute enough food for half a million meals a week.

Simone Angus-Carr from Ted Noffs - The Street University

Empathetic Simone Angus-Carr helps hundreds of young people make positive life changes as the Western Sydney Programs Manager for Ted Noffs – The Street University. Simone is perfect for the role. She has 20 years of experience working with addiction, and the young people respect and adore her.

If you need support, please phone Lifeline: 13 11 14