Rotary Takapuna North
A member of Rotary International, Rotary Takapuna North is based in Milford with around 25 active members. Founded in 1979, it has been serving the community for over 40 years, contributing to over 500 projects that have had a lasting impact. Rotary Takapuna North has been instrumental in setting up and supporting our North Shore branch.
Bill Grieve, Director at Rotary Takapuna North spoke to us about his experience with KiwiHarvest North Shore.
Tell us how KiwiHarvest North Shore began:
The original idea of KiwiHarvest North Shore came from Janice Blomgren (now Branch Manager) in December 2016, over five years ago. It was accepted as a project for the Rotary Club of Takapuna North with the very first project management meeting held in February 2017. At this stage, we had 30 volunteers.
Rotary provided the seed funding and we quickly moved to purchasing a refrigerated van for $26,000, funded by two of our volunteers. Operational funding was a combination of grants from Rotary, five sponsors and some community fundraising events such as an evening cocktail party and selling wine and roses.
We started deliveries on 1st May 2017 to three recipients using a Highlander station wagon three days per week. The issue was, and continues to be, balancing supply and demand.
A business case underwrites our ongoing relationship with KiwiHarvest. It gave KiwiHarvest full operational responsibility in September 2018 which took place as planned.
And what about KiwiHarvest North Shore today?
KiwiHarvest North Shore has 30 recipients – a variety of community centres, churches, schools, maraes and 15 suppliers including Pak’n’Save, New World, Countdown and a number of specialty providers.
Our challenge is keeping a consistent match between demand and supply so that our community’s needs are met with our volunteers providing the means.
A professional driver started in February 2019 that proved, in retrospect, to be essential to our continuing services during the lockdown events with no volunteers possible. Rising demand now requires working five days a week.
Over the last 18 months, sky high demand and a very constrained supply of fresh food from local supermarkets has been an issue. A combination of NZ Food Network support and KiwiHarvest supplies from Highbrook has kept us afloat, just. It is hand to mouth. The prolonged lockdowns have meant the role of our volunteers has been near eliminated.
What have been some key highlights of this experience so far?
The huge support and enthusiasm from club members. The smiles on the faces of children on receiving their first food offering. The gratitude of both recipients and supplier’s staff.
My abiding memory is of the smiles from the children at Beachhaven Primary School when we made the first delivery of bread and apples in May 2017. Also, that of Francis, the Milford New World logistic manager when he heard we were delivering to the Fono, the Pacific Island food bank in Northcote. It has been an inspirational journey for all of us.