Another Week, Another TV Makeover For The Slavin’s
by Lauren Golman
They say the kitchen is the heart of the home. But Our Big Kitchen is the heart of a community.
From humble beginnings, Our Big Kitchen now provides free food for those who need it most.
Our Big Kitchen, or OBK, is a community run industrial kitchen where meals are prepared for distribution to hospitals, ambulances, women’s, youth and children’s shelters, hostels, religious organisations, and anyone else who’s hungry.
The heart and soul of this kitchen is Rabbi Dr Dovid Slavin and his wife Laya Slavin. They started OBK 18 years ago, for people of all walks of life to connect through food.
OBK typically makes 1500 meals a week, during the bushfires that ramped up to 2500, and right now, OBK is pumping out 3500 meals a week.
But where did it all start? In the Slavin home kitchen it started almost two decades ago.
“By trade I’m a hairdresser, from that I went into the chemotherapy wards, and when a woman is going through treatment, you don’t see the pain, the worry, the sickness, you’re going to see very obviously the hair,” Mrs Slavin said.
“The women would be here getting their hair done, and she’d ask them, how are you managing with dinner? They’d inevitably cry very often and Laya cries with them. And then our dinner would go out the door! But this kitchen really became a busier kitchen, then the volunteers came in, and this kitchen got a good wearing out! We decided to build something much bigger which became Our Big Kitchen.”
Over the last 18 years, this home kitchen has literally fallen apart. So with the help of some very generous businesses, we renovated both kitchens. The Slavins and crew at OBK were all overwhelmed.
A Current Affair spent quite a bit of time at OBK filming this story, and personally, it was one of the most rewarding stories I’ve had the pleasure of covering.
This year has been difficult, but if anything, this story goes to show there’s a whole heap of good out there. You just have to find it.
YOU COULD HELP OBK WIN 10K:
Our Laya was nomination as a Westfield Local Hero. If she wins $10,000 will be donated to OBK.
Every vote counts. Please cast yours, and share this with your friends: Click Here
