A quiet man who didn’t talk much shocked the community kitchen he had volunteered at once a week for a decade when he left them his house after he died.
Malcolm ‘Mal’ Mawhinney left the deed to his understated but impeccably located Clovelly house in Sydney to Reverend Bill Crew’s Exodus Foundation after he died.
Rev Crews was shocked when friends of Mr Mawhinney told him that he had donated the house, and decided to sell it to help support the long-running kitchen for the destitute and needy.
The home was in a state of dilapidation and disrepair at the time of Mr Mawhinney’s death, but because of its prized location in Sydney’s eastern suburbs it still sold for $4.5million dollars.
All of the money from the sale will be reinvested into the kitchen, which Rev. Crews said had been running on limited funds recently.
Reverend Bill Crews knew Malcolm ‘Mal’ Mawhinney as a volunteer at his Exodus Foundation for the last decade but did not know much else about the reclusive character
When Mr Mawhinney died his friends told Rev Crews that he had donated his $4.5million house in Clovelly, Sydney, to help keep the charity kitchen afloat
Mr Crews did not know much about Mr Mawhinney and thought he might have even been struggling to get by himself, he told A Current Affair.
‘You never knew how much he earned or where he came from or what he did… He didn’t look much different from a lot of our guests, so he was just one of us,’ he said.
Mr Mawhinney had to stop volunteering at the kitchen after he suffered from a stroke before dying in 2021 at the age of 75.
His friends initially got into contact with the Reverend because his final wish was for his ashes to be scattered on Sydney’s Cricket Ground.
After accepting to help with that request, they began telling him more about their late friend.
‘They said he’s going to leave you his house but it’s all run down, but it didn’t really click,’ Rev Crews said.
Mr Mawhinney had been a reclusive homebody for the entire time Rev Crews knew him and one of his favourite hobbies was reading in the back room of his home.
An image from Google Street View had even captured him resting on the large glass door at the rear of his house while he was reading in the sun.
When Rev Crews got into contact with Tony Andreacchio from Raine and Horne House Auctions, the two worked to sell the property that Mr Mawhinney’s friends said was ‘held together with pigeon poo’.
‘He lived, let’s say, very poorly (but) what he’s done for this church is incredible because Bill was saying that he was starting to run short of food and everything,’ Mr Andreacchio said.
The day the house went to auction Rev Crews was nervous it might not sell because not many people had shown up, but once they arrived the bids started rolling in.
‘Mal’ Mawhinney was a reclusive homebody who didn’t share much about himself
An image from Google Street View even captured him sitting in the sunlit back room of his house while he was reading
Beginning with a bid of $3million, buyers became more excited to bid when they heard that the proceeds would go towards Rev Crews.
After stalling between the starting bid and $3.5million, the offers didn’t stop until they had finally settled at $4.5million.
The profits from the auction are expected to feed hundreds of thousands of people who rely on the Exodus Foundation for support.
Rev Crew’s kitchen feeds more than 600,000 people who are vulnerable or homeless every year.
When asked what Mr Mawhinney’s legacy would be, Rev Crews said that helping those in need to survive would be how the kitchen would remember him.
A woman in her 60s came to the kitchen after Mr Mawhinney had died who needed help because she had lost her job and cared for a disabled child, Rev Crews recalled.
‘She comes here for help and we’re able to help her, that’s how he’ll be remembered,’ he said.
‘He’ll be remembered through this woman, knowing she can survive for a bit longer.’
Rev Crew’s Exodus Foundation feeds more than 600,000 vulnerable people every year, and its continued success will be the lasting legacy of Mr Mawhinney, he said
Source: | This article originally belongs to Dailymail.co.uk
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