A couple who spent their retirement savings and overcame personal health hurdles to feed disadvantaged people across Perth have been awarded this year’s John Curtin Medal.<\/p>\n
Beverley and John Lowe are the creators of Manna Industries, a charity that feeds homeless people in inner-city Perth.<\/p>\n
From humble beginnings, Manna Industries is now the leading volunteer-operated food program in Western Australia.<\/p>\n
Last year the organisation provided 53,000 meals to homeless people, 10,000 breakfasts to hungry school children and 4000 food parcels to families in need.<\/p>\n
Every week, 200 volunteers give their time to Manna Industries.<\/p>\n
The annual John Curtin Medal is the highest non-academic award offered by Curtin University. It is presented to outstanding citizens who exhibit the qualities of vision, leadership and community service demonstrated by wartime Prime Minister John Curtin.<\/p>\n
The University\u2019s Acting Vice-Chancellor Robyn Quin said the Lowes were very worthy recipients of the award.<\/p>\n
\u201cMr and Mrs Lowe are an inspiring couple who put the needs of others first as part of their personal quest to make the world a better place,\u201d Professor Quin said.<\/p>\n
\u201cTheir strongly held beliefs have led them to helping people who are less fortunate than most, by providing them with a nourishing meal each day, while also imparting essential life skills to help these people become self sufficient.”<\/p>\n
The couple moved to Perth in 1982 to access specialist support for their hearing-impaired son. Both worked in the disability sector and established a deaf singing choir.<\/p>\n
In 1996, the Lowes noticed a group of homeless people sitting in an inner-city park in Northbridge, and Mrs Lowe decided to go home and make soup for them.<\/p>\n
In their first eight years feeding homeless people, the couple cooked soup in their home kitchen and distributed it from their family car.<\/p>\n
The Lowes spent their retirement funds to ensure everyone was fed.<\/p>\n
Manna Industries now serves more than 1200 meals to homeless people each week.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe created Manna Industries because we are passionate about helping others,” Mrs Lowe said.<\/p>\n
“For our efforts to be recognised with such a prestigious award is very humbling.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe make meals served with love and treat every person with respect and dignity, which is just as important as the meal.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr and Mrs Lowe have experienced serious health problems, yet Manna Industries has survived, flourished and expanded.<\/p>\n
In 2001, the organisation established a breakfast program, called Manna Kids, in five primary schools across Perth. More than 600 breakfasts are prepared each week, and this figure is growing.<\/p>\n
In April 2010, Manna Kids opened a purpose-built cooking facility at Maddington Primary School to teach students how to prepare simple, healthy meals using fresh produce from the school\u2019s kitchen garden.<\/p>\n
Manna Kids also launched the Winter School Uniform Project in 2008 and has since provided warm winter uniforms to more than 1200 Perth primary school students.<\/p>\n
In 2008, Mr and Mrs Lowe were each awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Couple who spent retirement savings and overcame personal health hurdles to feed Perth’s homeless people awarded this year’s John Curtin Medal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4275,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_oasis_is_in_workflow":0,"_oasis_original":0,"_oasis_task_priority":"","_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"8249,4647,4862,4681,6598,6505","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_research-areas":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"research-areas":[],"class_list":["post-4717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-campus-and-global-community"],"acf":{"post_options":{"":null,"additional_content":{"title":"","content":"","image":false},"related_courses":[{"title":"","qualification":"","link":"","description":"","faculty":""}],"credits":{"author":"","photographer":"","media":false},"display_author":true,"banner":{"image":false}},"post_components":false},"featured_image":false,"author_meta":{"first_name":"Curtin","last_name":"University","display_name":"Curtin University"},"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-20 17:08:11","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4717","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4275"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4717"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4717\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4717"},{"taxonomy":"research-areas","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/research-areas?post=4717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}