AMM Volunteer Wins Citizen of the Year

We’re incredibly proud to share that our long-time volunteer Eddie Edmonds has been named Darebin Citizen of the Year – a huge honour, and one that feels exactly right for the man who has quietly become the backbone of our Preston kitchen.


For more than four years, Eddie has given two full days every week to Alex Makes Meals. That’s over 2,000 volunteer hours – time he has spent on his feet in the kitchen, carefully chopping, tasting, stirring and teaching. In that time, Eddie has helped us produce around 300,000 meals for people facing homelessness, family crisis, mental illness and social isolation, reaching more than 32 partner organisations across Darebin and greater Melbourne.

Eddie joined Alex Makes Meals in December 2021 and quickly became part of the furniture – the good kind: reliable, solid, impossible to imagine the place without. He is almost always the first to arrive and the last to leave, and he starts every shift with a simple, question:

“What are we cooking today, and how many people can we feed?”

With more than 30 years of professional culinary experience, Eddie is one of the quiet quality guardians of our output. He has a simple benchmark: the food we make for people doing it tough should never be lower than something he’d be proud to serve in a paid kitchen. That standard has lifted the bar for everyone around him.

Courage, humour and showing up

Eddie lives with Parkinson’s disease, diagnosed at 50. A few years ago, he needed Deep Brain Stimulation surgery, a significant and daunting procedure. While most people would understandably step back from responsibilities, Eddie’s biggest worry was that he might leave the kitchen short-staffed. Even in a moment of major personal health risk, his first thought was still the people we feed, and the volunteers he works alongside.

Eddie has called Darebin home since 2012. Rather than treating retirement as a time to step back, he chose to spend it serving his neighbours – the people in his own municipality who are doing it toughest.

Our whole team – staff, volunteers, partner organisations and meal recipients – are proud to stand behind you and say “Citizen of the Year” fits you perfectly.

Thank you for your time, your skill, your humour and your refusal to let standards slip – for yourself or for us. Our kitchen, our charity and our community are all better because you chose to spend your retirement in an apron, at a chopping board, thinking first about how many people you can help feed.

From everyone at Alex Makes Meals:

Congratulations, Eddie – and thank you.