After having spent 25 successful years on air, high profile Melbourne entertainer, Matt Tilley has swapped his early morning wake-up calls to focus on helping others. 

Best-known as the host of The Matt & Jo Show on Fox FM and ranked #1 FM station in Melbourne for 14 years, Matt now fills his days making a difference to those affected by food insecurity within Australia.  

During his radio years Matt raised much money for various charities including funds collected from the royalties earned by the best-selling CD compilations of his Gotcha Calls, but most recently joined the Foodbank team working on the frontline as their Chief Communications Officer.

Given Morris Finance’s recent initiative of donating 1,000 meals to Foodbank for every goal kicked by the Cats at the Country festival match, resulting in a staggering 30,000 meals for those in need, we thought it would be opportune to catch up with Matt to discuss how he got involved with the organisation, the ramifications from COVID-19 on food insecurity within Australia and what he’s learnt personally in his time at Foodbank.

Matt, can you explain what Foodbank does and how you got involved?

A few years ago, whilst still in radio, I was the ambassador for the Foodbank corporate charity ride, this is where I met Dave McNamara, CEO of Foodbank Victoria. I had always been interested in charities and the work they do having been on a few Boards now. I was also studying a Diploma in Business Governance for Not for Profits and Dave just said at the start of COVID-19, “hey could you come and help us out with Marketing,” and it all fell into place from there.

Foodbank is Australia’s largest food relief organisation, tackling the increasing reality of hunger and food poverty in Australia, by sourcing, securing, and distributing food and groceries to 2,600 front-line charities and 2,500 School breakfast programs.

Foodbank works with the entire Australian food and grocery industry including farmers, wholesalers, manufacturers, and retailers, and is here for the long haul to help vulnerable Australian’s access food and grocery relief, no matter what the crisis is.

As Chief Communications Officer at Foodbank Victoria, what does your role entail?

Having been in the role for 15 months now, I oversee the Fundraising, Marketing, Corporate Partnerships, and Volunteering programs. We’ve had a number of campaigns running across the past year that I coordinate, both direct campaigns and then responding to the recent lockdown, which then permeates into a media frenzy because when big events happen, and we put it on social media it just goes crazy.

There are these continual moments, for example in the last lockdown where we opened up our warehouse for the first time ever, it was like a giant drive through, except there were ten stations. So almost like a booze bus set up, pull up, pop their boots, and we just drop a hamper of fresh food in there. We thought there would be a stigma and they would be embarrassed, but it was a really nice moment to have a mum come in with kids in the back and just the look of being beaten down and wondering how she’s going to feed her kids and be able to pop some beautiful food in the car and give the kids a bit of a smile, it’s just fantastic.

Can you explain how COVID-19 has affected Foodbank and what the outlook for such worthwhile causes such as this is, in a challenging world and society?

The early months of 2020 saw Foodbank scaling up operations to meet the unprecedented increase in demand for food relief due to COVID-19 and the resulting widespread financial hardship. This increase included new demographic groups who had never needed food relief before, including temporary visa holders, newly unemployed, international students, and the elderly who found it difficult to leave their homes. 

The key thing we found more than anything that there were people knocking on the doors of charities who had never had to ask before, a lot of them were saying we used to give to Foodbank. So, it has changed the face of who traditionally receives charity. It really was indiscriminate, even the other week when we opened up our doors as a drive-through, there was the odd Range Rover coming through and you think, oh, what’s going on there, but if their family business was a restaurant and that had been stopped for six months, they literally had no cash flow.

So, we have really learnt is that it doesn’t take much for someone’s life to be turned upside down, just one or two things, a workplace accident and then a partner having to stay at home as a carer and eventually money dries up. We learned that it’s not that traditional image people have of need, hunger, and homelessness with some poor soul living under a bridge.

What else have you experienced through COVID-19, that’s been a good learning tool?

People are incredibly generous, that’s one thing we’ve learned and that we continue to be surprised and it’s quite emotional, from people who really have nothing to give, still finding $50 to give. We had one student send some money in a letter the other day and he said “here is $20, if you need more, just help yourselves to my bank account whenever you like, but can you leave a bit for me to live on.” Just those little moments where you just go, gosh, people are so generous, it gives you faith in society.

On the other hand, we had some businesses that did really well during COVID-19 who ended up donating five or ten thousand dollars. A lot of people did well, and they say, look, this was a pretty good time for us, so we want to give back to those who were less fortunate.

You’re also known as a comedian, radio host, and MC, can you tell us a bit more about that and why you chose to leave.

Radio was a fun job, I was a kid who did prank phone calls amongst his mates and then ended up making a career out of it in a way. I think the best part of it was, I was lucky to work with some great teams, some funny people that were very creative, so we had a lot of fun. And we always lived by the mantra, if you’re not having fun off-air, people will be able to hear that on-air. So that was what I really liked about it, but it was time for a change of scenery for me.

I’m always happy to share with people that those gotcha calls that became a hit, I’m really proud of the fact that we made a million bucks for charities out of them. But they did take hours and people would constantly hang up. Then you’ve got to ring back the next day and then when no caller ID came in, I mean, people just wouldn’t answer.

In your spare time can you tell us what your hobbies are and how you balance work and life?

I’m a mad cyclist, but I’m also a very intensely competitive vegetable grower, I have a little veggie patch down on the Mornington Peninsula and every year I take it to the Red Hill show and win awards. I also ride a couple of hundred km’s a week and have been lucky enough to go overseas a couple of times to follow the Tour de France. It’s definitely a passion of mine that helps me clear my head. I also love my cricket and footy, and as an Essendon fan, it’s good to see there is a bit of hope for the team for the season ahead.

How can everybody assist Foodbank and “Fighting hunger in Australia” right now in many people’s hours of need?

At the moment, with the uncertainty around COVID-19 and people not being able to drop off food because of safety and distancing, funding is our priority. So, if people want to donate and if they can do it financially, we can turn one dollar into two meals. That’s our strong metric, we’re very proud of that. That’s pretty much an equation that enables lots of people to be fed.

Finally, Morris Finance has been an incredible partner of Foodbank with their focus largely around how many meals they can provide for so many vulnerable Australians and I thank them for their generosity.

You too can make a difference by donating to Foodbank at foodbank.org.au

Every dollar donated will provide 2 meals to someone in need.