Two Good to be True

For every lunch that Two Good delivers, one goes to someone in need.

Buying your lunch from Two Good is an effortless act of goodwill. The initiative works on a buy-one, give-one basis. For $12 your lunch is delivered mid-morning on a Tuesday. An identical meal is then donated to one of two soup kitchens and eight domestic-violence shelters around Sydney.

Co-founder Rob Caslick has run an organic soup kitchen at St Canice’s Catholic Church for five years. Two Good is an extension of his charitable work. “We wanted to see if, when people buy their own lunch, they could actually pay for two,” he says. 

Caslick has enlisted the help of some of the city’s top chefs to create nutritious, economical meals. Produce is all insecticide free and sourced as locally as possible. For Kylie Kwong’s hokkien noodles with native greens and Chinese cabbage, Vietnamese mint is harvested from the Woolloomooloo community garden. Warrigal greens come from the rooftop garden at St Canice’s. 

It was Kwong who approached Caslick about the project. “Billy Kwong is all about community and collaboration,” she says. “I think it’s wonderful that a recipe I created at Billy Kwong is being served at shelters within walking distance of the restaurant, and providing employment for women who need a pathway out of homelessness.”

Caslick has employed women from the shelters to help make the lunches. “One lady went on and found full-time employment. Now she helps out as one of our lead volunteers,” he says. 

Neil Perry, Martin Benn, Peter Gilmore, Mitch Orr and Matt Moran have also created recipes for Two Good. The organisation’s core aim is to provide nourishing, lovingly made meals for those who need it most. 

“Eating good food that is well presented shows respect to victims of domestic violence living in shelters, and those who rely on soup kitchens,” says Moran. “It shows that they’re worthy of all the efforts that have gone into making the Two Good jar happen.”

Originally published on Broadsheet.