After being awarded the Junee Senior Citizen of the Year at the Australia Day Awards earlier this year, The Independent caught up with John Foord to discuss his achievement. As we enter the opening days of summer, another Australia Day is around the corner, with January 26 on the horizon. John Foord has been an integral part of the Junee community for many years, with his unwavering commitment at Saint Luke’s Anglican Church and the community kitchen not going unnoticed. In January this year John was presented with his Citizen of the Year award at the presentation at the Athenium Theatre.
The award represents outstanding service to the community, which John has delivered in spades with the church and community kitchen. “I like helping people, particularly it seems when there’s food involved, I like helping with that,” John said. 76-year-old John told The Independent how special the achievement was to him. “It was a great honour, a humbling experience,” he said. “I’ve relied on a lot of volunteers helping me all along the way in whatever I do.”
Upon accepting the award earlier this year, John encouraged the community to get involved in generosity. “When I spoke after getting the award, I did challenge the people of Junee to get active in goodwill,” John continued.
“There’s plenty of scope for us to expand if we look outside the box. “I’ve got great hopes for Junee.” John has been involved with the community kitchen for five years and became involved with the project when he heard it was going to shut down. “They put an article in the paper saying they were shutting down, and I said to my wife ‘there’s no way they’re going to shut that down’,” John said.
“I then put an article in the paper asking for volunteers around town to get it going again and people came out from everywhere to help.” Well done to John and his dedication to the Junee community by putting others first and helping those less fortunate. Tim Warren