The Buninyong Youth Council, which is made up of student leaders from Mount Clear Secondary College, Phoenix P-12 Community College, Woodmans Hill Secondary College and Loreto College, collected and delivered food donations to The Soup Bus on Friday morning after the group identified food insecurity as one of their focuses.

Along with a food drive for The Soup Bus, the group also donated food to the student pantry at Federation University and the One Humanity Shower Bus.

Buninyong Youth Council member Piper McPhan said the group identified food insecurity as an issue that became more prominent during the pandemic.

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"We wanted to give back and help those that have been in this situation since before COVID and now because of it are also struggling with it," she said.

"Each school decided to do a food drive and we ran ours across the whole school just before we went into one of the lockdowns.

"We did a with the casual clothes day and instead of doing a gold coin donation, we did a non-perishable food item or toiletry item. We sent that to Michaela's office. We've now decided as a school that we are probably going to do it again as a future alternative to a fundraiser."

On-Track Foundation director Craig Schepis said The Soup Bus relied on community donations to continue to support the service.

"If we can't access those through donation, then we're needing to then fund that to bring those items onto the bus," he said.

"We have a lot of businesses that might contribute by preparing food for each night, but in saying that, we're doing more and more non-perishable so we can pack food for families and get them out, to the point where after or during a service, we will hand things out to people that have the facilities to be able to cook.

"Off the back of COVID, what we've found is now we have more families coming to the service or are needing assistance, so we will actually sometimes have them meet here and not even go to the bus so that we can actually pack food for them and take that away on a Saturday morning or a Wednesday morning so that they're not needing to bring the family out to the bus for a meal.

"It's priceless for us and we were really overwhelmed by the amount of product that we received from the council. It was just super."

Mr Schepis said this time of year, leading into Christmas, could be especially stressful for some people.

"Some families who are really struggling financially unfortunately tend to overcommit with their kids at Christmas trying to do the right thing, but at the end of the day, come the start of school, are really struggling financially to get back into the mainstream of playing their general bills, costs, kids' uniforms and for us to be able to take that burden away and just assist in the basics is really important," he said.

"I love their initiative, I think the young people, especially this group, the initiative that they've put together for the benefit of another person especially in need is really exciting and it gives you a bit of a warm feeling knowing that your future is in pretty good hands so we're extremely grateful."

Member for Buninyong Michaela Settle said food insecurity was a 'wicked problem'.

"I'm incredibly impressed how the group identified a practical way that they could make a difference in the lives of others," she said.

"What was extraordinary, of course, was they went through COVID, so there were lots of Zoom meetings, as you can imagine, but I really couldn't believe the outcomes."

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