Wednesday Night Lights at Addi Road in Sydney’s Marrickville on a summer night with a little light rain, 12 February 2025…. free sit-down hot meals at tables for people who might appreciate something to eat and some friendly conversation too. A community gathering and building, week by week, in ebb and flow as always. Old friends turning up out of the blue. Stories of struggle, small victories, sudden triumphs.
We serve all kinds of people. The idea began as a regular free meal for the homeless and anyone battling. It’s still a foundation. But these days people come from miles away, to eat, to connect, to be less lonely, to share the best of themselves too… a best that can get overlooked or undermined because of inequality and lack of resources to live socially and exist in public as a full human being. The real ‘cost of living’: excluded from living in ways that many people once took for granted.
Our Addi Road Food Pantry stays open later than usual today (till 7pm) for anyone who wants to do some low-cost grocery shopping and pick up whatever free fruit and vegetables and bread we can give them.
Outside on the road, Wednesday Night Lights is set up and steadily flourishing as always. Numbers flicker and bend from 50 or so to as many as 200 on a big night like our first birthday. But generally it’s ‘steady as she goes’ at around 100 people a week across the WNL hours of 6pm to 8pm each Wednesday, out volunteers keeping our community ship sailing along beautifully.
Dishing up another free hot meal at Addi Road’s Wednesday Night Lights. Menu details and NO STOPPING sign all part of our street level service. Photo by Mark Mordue.
4 Voices at Addi Road’s Wednesday Night Lights, 12 February 2025
Street Side Medics at Addi Road’s Wednesday Night Lights, 12 February 2025.
Feel Good Project at work at Addi Road’s Wednesday Night Lights community food relief event in Marrickville. Photo Mark Mordue.
A circle of wraparound services partner with us. Tonight our loyal friends at Street Side Medics are offering their usual free weekly help with a retinue of doctors and nurses – with the added bonus this evening of a group of podiatrists brought in to look at people having problems with their feet.
Orange Sky Australia have taken up their favourite corner by the Addi Road Office washing and drying everything in their mobile laundry van. On the road the Feel Good Project have parked their giant silver caravan, a hair studio on wheels that spills out onto the road where people sit getting hair trimmed and styled to salon perfection.
Helping people – and making them feel good – is part of the dual philosophy of the night.
Unsurprisingly, the favour is returned by everyone attending, a kind of mutual electricity in the warm air. Conversations seems to spark off this feeling everywhere.
4 Voices keep a table on the grass, siting and chatting with women about problems and needs: housing, domestic violence, writing a resume, doing a job interview, or needing someone who listens… just to talk through what can happen and what might be possible in their lives. You are not alone.
By the wall of the Addi Road Food Pantry there’s a rack of vintage clothes from Reunion Store donated to us. People try things on… too small, too big, just right.
All of a sudden another burst of rain forces diners on the road to move their tables on to our narrow verandah area for some protection.
Everyone keeps talking as the night winds down and people start to pack up or drift off to their homes or wherever they might find rest.
A meal inside them, some necessary help or advice, a bit of sustaining conversation going with them.
Another Wednesday Night Lights, just like all the others last year and more to come over the year ahead. People gathering together, caring about one another in the Marrickville night.
Closing time at Addi Road’s Wednesday Night Lights, 12 February 2025. Photo by Mark Mordue.
You can donate to Addi Road’s food relief and community programs via the link here: https://addi-road-food-relief-appeal-2025.raiselysite.com