"The Community Grocer - Food for Healthy Connected Communities"

The Community Grocer is about empowering healthy connected communities and we do this by running weekly affordable fresh food markets across Melbourne.

In answer to the growing need for fresh food access and the inherent limitations on the broader food relief system, the Community Grocer model is all about dignity, choice and inclusion.

Currently running five weekly markets across Melbourne, three of which are based on public housing estates, we aim to increase intake of fruit and vegetables in a vibrant and inclusive community setting.

Russell is the Founder and Chair of The Community Grocer, a social enterprise initiative that aims to improve access for people living in public housing to fresh affordable food via a weekly fruit and vegetable market.

Russell is a member of the StreetSmart Grants Committee and was a founding member of the City of Melbourne Homelessness Advisory Committee. He is currently a Founding Member of the Social Enterprise Network of Victoria and the recently formed City of Melbourne Food Alliance.

In 2013 Russell was awarded a Churchill Fellowship to study `International models of food rescue and community food initiatives that address food security for vulnerable populations’, and in 2017 was awarded a scholarship from the Lord Mayor’s Charitable Foundation to attend the Social Enterprise World Forum in Christchurch.