Staying Connected, Learning New Skills and Meeting New Friends During Challenging Times

Who said social distancing had to be boring and unproductive?

Our team in the Riverland has absolutely quashed this perception, setting up a program including a variety of fun and engaging challenges that have helped people we support feel connected with friends and develop new skills.  

With tomato-based products (particularly pasta sauce) in short supply in supermarkets during the pandemic, the Riverland team took advantage of the abundance of fantastic fresh local produce available and devised a passata-making and blind taste-testing challenge! 

Using delicious local produce, people made batches of passata (pureed tomato) and participated in a blind taste test competition via Zoom video conferencing. The gang at Seventeenth Street was determined the winner having been deemed to have made the most tantalising passata of the lot! 

In the end, everyone was a winner with everyone’s pantries now well-stocked for the cold months ahead and a very useful new skill up their sleeves.  

The initial competition was such a success and fun that the local team is expanding the program for more people across the region so that new friendships can be formed.  

A great example of how a little creativity, wonderful local produce and technology can be used to bring everyone together. 

Well done everyone.