In a time when grocery bills can make even the most careful household budget buckle, a small produce stand in Rowan Street offers Wangaratta a reminder that community still works best when people look after one another.

The idea is simple ‘take what you will use, leave what you have spare’, but its impact reaches well beyond avoiding waste, and helps lowers barriers that stop people from accessing fresh food.

There are no forms, no questions, no shame and no need to prove hardship, someone can take a pumpkin, a handful of curry leaves or a loaf starter and turn it into dinner.

This simple idea matters in the midst of a cost-of-living crisis that is forcing many families to stretch meals, downgrade nutrition or go without.

Food relief organisations and support services are seeing demand rise across Australia, but the solution cannot only sit with charities and governments, it also has to live in streets, gardens, verandahs and front yards, where neighbours can share abundance without ceremony.

The Rowan Street stand also pushes back against a growing individualism that tells us our problems, and our surplus, are ours alone.

A box of excess lemons, a few seedlings or a carton of UHT milk can become a quiet act of solidarity.

It says that food should not be wasted while others are hungry, and that dignity is protected when help is easy to give and easy to receive.

Our community should celebrate this kind of practical kindness and look for ways to multiply it.