A unique food rescue operation in Central Hawke’s Bay is feeding 800 locals a week in an effort to reduce food insecurity in the community.
The Food Basket CHB was founded by local wahine Mel King seven years ago. It collects leftover groceries from supermarkets to feed the community and stop tonnes of food from going into landfill.
The operation now has 40 volunteers, and has grown to include cooking classes, gardening and frozen meals for the elderly and ill. King told RNZ that the initial idea was inspired by the Free Store in Wellington.
In the past year the group has rescued nearly 230,000kg of food from landfill, and turned it into over 1.3 million free meals.
“Underpinning everything we do is wanting people to know there is a resource available to them in their community, from their community, where they are always going to be able to find some food without any criteria or needing to give anything,” King said.
The organisation is running out of Waipukurau’s old Plunket Rooms, and anyone can access the free food by dropping in to regular sessions there as well as in Waipawa, Takapau and Ōtāne.
“The anxiety that comes with hunger and not being able to find food.. that really permeates everybody and every aspect of your life, so if we can get in there and just let people let go of that worry then that’s a win,” she said.
The initiative is supported by a number of organisations including the Aotearoa Food Rescue Alliance, NZ Food Network and the Zero Hunger Collective, but Mel King still worries about the future.
“It is hard as a sector because we are really vulnerable to the changes, the political and funding changes… and ideally we wouldn’t be,” she said.
Local chef Pam McKay is among those volunteering their time and skills to feed others.
“I’d been out of work because I had a few strokes and it drove me nuts not working so I came down here to volunteer.
“It’s rewarding and I kid you not, you actually have a huge huge amount of fun,” McKay said.
She was also running a free cooking class out of the Plunket room kitchen, in an effort to get more people back in the kitchen cooking healthy food.
“It’s too easy to get ready meals and there are too many takeaways going into families,” she said.
During Cyclone Gabrielle the Food Basket CHB was making 300 meals a week for those affected by the storm. King said although that service has since been scaled back, the demand for food has not.
“There’s absolutely really high need, the numbers show that. But there’s a high need for people to access food when they don’t have the money or other means to find food to put on the table to literally feed their families.”
Some of her volunteers, like Steve Brooker, began their journey on the other side of table as a food basket customer.
“Things are tough and they still are, and they are going to be for a little while, so it really does help out.
“It’s for everyone, not just a certain person. They get a smile on their face and can go home knowing they’ve got something to put in their bellies… they’re so much happier,” he said.
Many people in the community also donate kai from their gardens and farms, such as Haana Wilcox who teaches Kai Oranga, growing mauri-rich kai through a Māori world view.
“Mauri is life force… and when veges and fruit are grown with intent and love, and knowing the whakapapa of the seeds, where they come from, the stories they come from… that’s very different to the stuff you buy in plastic from supermarket that’s been there heaven knows how long, grown heaven knows where, and usually has not touched by human hand,” Wilcox said.
Part of her mahi is growing kai at Mataweka Marae in Waipawa, which is then donated to the food basket.
“You give what you have and it’s lovely for our marae to be making a contribution to our wider community.
“I love the philosophy of the food basket – to me this is a way of sharing kai that enhances the mana of everybody. You don’t have to come here and ask, you don’t have to beg, you don’t have to prove there is ‘something wrong with you’,” she said.
By Alexa Cook for rnz.co.nz