MEET our FINALISTS

Loretta

BOLOTIN

30, Northcote, Vic

FREE TO FEED

Cooking and catering social enterprise that gives refugees employment and connection

Loretta knew she was on to a good idea when she found herself in a Melbourne cafe watching people learn to cook as they listened to the story of a newly arrived refugee. “It smelled beautiful,”she says. “People were connecting. I thought, ‘Wow, there’s something in this that really works’. It grew from there.”Loretta had been working with refugees for many years and was aware that the greatest challenges newly arrived people faced were social isolation and finding employment. She and her partner wanted to create something to help them overcome those challenges. Free to Feed is the result of that passion.“We started by borrowing cafes around Melbourne and employing a group of newly arrived