Feeding hungry kids with free school lunches

Lyndon founded Eat Up on his Mum’s kitchen table in his hometown of Shepparton after reading a local newspaper story highlighting children in his community going hungry at school. With a drive to help and a passion for start-ups and grassroots growth, together with his Bachelor of Business Entrepreneurship from RMIT University, Lyndon began to build the Eat Up model, impact, and team. He won a Westpac Scholarship that provided him with the support, training and mentorship to develop Eat Up further and to make useful contacts and introductions through the program. Westpac has remained an ongoing supporter of Eat Up’s work through corporate volunteering sessions and grant support, for which we are extremely grateful.

Lyndon stepped down as CEO (in 20210) as he felt he had taken the organisation as far as he could and that Eat Up needed a different set of skills/experience to take it to the next level. This is an exemplary move from someone who is the original founder and has passionately driven the organisation from a grassroots organisation to a national player.

Lyndon has just returned from a successful 2024 Churchill Fellowship tour visiting Tokyo, London, Manchester, New York, Las Vegas, and Los Angeles to find out what other countries are doing with regard to food insecurity and school lunches. To bring this information back and share so we can all learn from it and to inform our work with funders and government. Read on for our interview with Lyndon!

Describe your career trajectory and how you got to your current position.

I studied at RMIT University, completing a Bachelor of Business (Entrepreneurship) degree. The course combined commerce, marketing, accounting, and law and had a core focus on the start-up phase of business.

While studying, I founded a street press magazine that showcased the writing, photography, design, and opinions of young people from across regional Victoria. I also co-founded a music festival in Shepparton, 3630, with my friend Jamie Lea.

You can probably see the trend now—local and youth-focused. When I read in our hometown newspaper about local school children arriving at school without food from home and going hungry at lunchtime, I immediately wanted to help. I pinched what I could from my Mum’s cupboards and started making sandwiches on her kitchen table to drop off at the schools mentioned in the article. That was the start of Eat Up.

I never anticipated that that moment would be the fork in the road of my life that it has been. I’m enormously grateful to work both on a cause that I’m so passionate about, and together with the most amazing team, volunteers, and supporters who have made Eat Up’s national impact since, possible.

Take us through a typical day of work for you.

One of the things I love most about working with Eat Up is that I rarely repeat the same work day, tasks, and even location over and over. 

Eat Up’s volunteer sandwich-making events are hosted onsite with the groups volunteering with us, generally at corporate offices in the CBD. Or we’re on the road in our vans delivering to schools across suburban areas. After 12 years, these are still my two favourite things to do!

I love connecting with our existing in-kind food donors who are so vital to our work, and pitching to new brands to join our effort to feed hungry Aussie kids.

When we’re fortunate to have access to media to share our cause, I love the opportunity to raise awareness for our work and how others can help.

Most recently, I’ve been exploring “in-school food models” and how providing a hot, nutritious, and delicious free lunch for Australia’s highest-needs students can benefit their learning, increase attendance, and improve the broader school environment. This approach is common overseas, and thanks to a Churchill Fellowship, I was fortunate to recently visit Japan, Italy, the UK, and the USA to learn from world-leading examples.

What is the biggest challenge you’ve encountered in your career, and how did you overcome it?

Growing pains for Eat Up and for me personally have both been a welcome sign of progress, but uncomfortable just the same.

Like the pattern of a staircase, I would be lifted upward as things went well before reaching a period of plateau. In the moments of plateau, I would question my ability to take the next step. I would be stressed, and most often, I would have to try a new approach, develop further, or bring in additional support to allow for the next step up.

Eventually, this cycle became clearer to me, and while the plateaus were never as enjoyable as the jumps, I started to associate a plateau with an impending breakthrough.

Recognising the cycle also helped me become more proactive before, during, and after each plateau. I adopted a growth mindset rather than a fixed mindset, for myself and for Eat Up. If we kept going and kept learning, we would keep climbing.

If you could go back in time, what piece of advice would you give yourself as you first embarked on your career?

I love the spark and idealism of youth. I’m 37 now, and I started Eat Up at 25. Honestly, when I hear these questions: “What would you tell your younger self?” I’m far more interested in what the younger version would tell me instead. In so many ways, I try to live my life in a way the 10-year-old or 20-year-old version of me would be excited about and proud of. I’d hate to let little Lyndon down, haha. 

How do you unwind after work?

I have a 3-year-old son, Luca, and a 1-year-old daughter, Marley. I absolutely love picking them up from daycare at the end of the day and the moment we first spot each other and then have a big hug. It’s the absolute highlight of my day, and I always look forward to it! 

My wife, Belinda, and I love watching movies. Before the kids were born, we used to go to the cinema three times a week—we can’t now, though, of course. 

Perhaps, when the kids are past running to me and giving me a big hug, Belinda and I will substitute the movies back in!

I love running, pushing myself and the Essendon Football Club. Go Bombers!