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proudly serving Brimbank and the North West
14 JULY, 2026
Serving up kindness After helping provide more than 1500 meals to locals doing it tough in 2025, a Tullamarine business is again offering complimentary meals to locals doing it tough. Melrose Pizza launched its Random Acts of Pizza campaign on Tuesday 7 July, with the support of Tullamarine Community House, Helping Hands and Deputy Premier Ben Carroll. The campaign runs until 31 October and will offer digital meal vouchers, online redemption and confidential home delivery, in an effort to provide more accessible support for people experiencing hardship. Meals will be provided through partnerships with local charities and community organisations, while members of the public can also buy Random Acts of Pizza vouchers for support services to dstribute. Melrose Pizza co-owner Alex Harris said this year’s initiative had been designed to better support locals experiencing hardship, including those without transport or facing family violence, housing instability, financial stress or other difficult circumstances, helping them access a warm meal with dignity, privacy and ease. Melrose Pizza owners Alexis and Russell Harris. (Damjan Janevski) 563859_05
Cancer cash wait By Cade Lucas A Derrimut father battling brain cancer has slammed online fundraising platform GoFundMe for taking nearly two weeks to transfer $25,000 worth of donations to help pay for his treatment. Peter Navascues launched the fundraising page on 19 June after being diagnosed with a Grade 4 glioblastoma, the most deadly type of brain tumour that kills most patients within 12-18 months. The GoFundMe page quickly attracted thousands of dollars in donations and with the Yarra Trams employee unable to work, only some of his treatment covered by Medicare and with a wife and two children
to still support, he sought to access the funds on Sunday 28 June. “I’m chewing through my savings like there’s no tomorrow,” Mr Navascues said, pointing to the cost of extra treatments like hyperbaric therapy and naturopathy aimed at increasing his very low chances of survival, as a big reason why. “I’ve spent about $6k this week out of pocket on all my treatments.” But despite the amount of money donated towards Mr Navascues and his obvious need for it, it wasn’t until Saturday 11 July that it fi nally landed in his bank account “I was so relieved I could’ve cried mate,” he said of the moment the transfer went through after being made to wait more
than three times longer than expected. “It said three (business) days and it took 11,” Mr Navascues said of the delay which he blamed on GoFundMe’s customer service, or lack thereof. “It was all just AI.” When his money didn’t arrive as expected, Mr Navascues said his inquiries to GoFundMe were met with AI responses that were not only unhelpful, but for someone with failing eyesight due to brain tumours, hard for him to read. When he put this to the AI assistant, the response was even less helpful. “They said ask someone to read it out to you,” Mr Navascues said, adding that when he fi nally did get to speak to a real person
from the company last week, it didn’t go much better. “I actually got through to a human who couldn’t help me.” The only message Mr Navascues did get from the company was that his request for the money to be transferred was “pending verification” leading him to believe that the issue could’ve been a discrepancy in his initials on the ID documents he’d provided. “With the driver’s licence in Australia, your middle name is an initial but then your bank statement will have your full name, it has to match 100 per cent,” Mr Navascues said. Continued: Page 4.
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