Vale Virginia
On Thursday Steph sent a message through on the Fair Food WhatsApp group.
“I have some sad news, I just received a call from John Lowe that one of our oldest customers, Virginia Lowe, has passed away.”
And then…
“…It feels strange, I never met her, but we have been chatting with Virginia weekly for nearly 16 years. There’s a folder for filing emails just from Virginia. She’s written a poem about Fair Food, her old New Scientist magazines have been a constant feature of the lunchroom. She’s contributed to our website copy, UX design and had a say on what we stock in our store. She’s one of our biggest supporters.”
When Fair Food started in 2010 we didn’t deliver door-to-door — instead we’d drop multiple orders at volunteer Food Hosts’ homes for customers to come and pick up.
When COVID lockdowns closed our Food Hosts, Virginia wrote about her experience being a Food Host in her house in Ormond.
“I have always struggled with supermarkets (unethical investments in pokies, replacement of staff by automation, charging producers more for their items to be placed enticingly, putting sweets at child eye-level).
At first I was a Fair Food customer but when a Food Host position became available I took it (Jesse visited and looked us over first). I have hosted for the ten years since. Eventually there were up to twenty-four people collecting boxes from our carport.
Many of them stopped and chatted with each other and with me. I’d often, especially in warm weather, take a chair out to the carport, with a book, and chat with customers when they came. Sometimes I took young ones who came with their mothers out into the backyard to meet our chooks, and let them take an egg from the nest. It was a real community.”
Professionally, Dr Virginia Lowe was an editor — her manuscript service helped more than forty children’s authors and illustrators into print.
I never thought about it this way but for 16 years Virginia was Fair Food’s editor — she proofread our website, corrected mistakes, organised and alphabetised, suggested new products and layouts, questioned why we did things this way and not that and above all consistently praised and encouraged us.
Virginia Lowe’s commitment to helping Fair Food do better, be better, over so many years was extraordinary. And she also shopped with us every week.
In 2023 Virginia sent us a poem.
‘But isn’t it expensive?’
I could spend all week on research
is this firm or farm, fair trade, local
organic, sustainable, helping the planet?
That’s what I pay Ceres for.
As much as possible
I do what I can to save the world
For the soil, water, air
no pollution hence organics
no exploitation hence fair trade
That’s what I pay Ceres for.
The worthwhile causes
I pay for helping the animals and the people
I know that here the payment
goes to struggling farmers
packers and transport – all local
That’s what I pay Ceres for.
Maybe I should be working for the refugees?
But I can’t do much at my age
I can’t offer them a job
or an affordable home.
Is it twenty-seven
nationalities that work there
on their first Australian job?
That’s what I pay Ceres for.
I could go to supermarkets
like everyone else
even if I only bought their organics
increase their overwhelming profits
but I’m glad to keep out of them
and have Ceres deliver to my door.
And Ceres profits – they go to
Ceres Park to educate children
to be the leaders that we need
on sustainability, pollution, saving the world
That’s what I pay Ceres for.
Virginia Lowe
On behalf of everyone at Fair Food, we send our love and our gratitude to Virginia’s husband, John, her children, Beck and Ralph, and her grandson, Ezra.
Chris and the Fair Food Team
