One of Wellington’s largest food rescue charities faces closure after being given notice to leave its warehouse.
By Ethan Te Ora
Kiwi Community Assistance feeds around 10,000 people a month and needs to line up a new home “in the next few weeks", or begin winding up operations ahead of its sublease ending on May 1.
Manager Tracy Wellington said there was "nothing on the market fitting our criteria" and the charity also needed to raise tens of thousands of dollars to fund the move.
“It’s going to cost us $80,000, because we have to dismantle our chiller rooms, our freezer rooms, all the racking systems that you see in the warehouse and then rebuild them into a new premises.”
Without the charity, a lot of families "working two to three jobs on minimum wage" would go hungry, she said.
Operating six days a week, Kiwi Community Assistance rescued around 1.2 tonnes of food a day and supplied more than 50 food banks and community groups throughout the Wellington region as far afield as the Kāpiti Coast.
Porirua’s Whānau Manaaki Community Kindergartens relied on the charity to feed around 200 people a week.
“For us, it’s about our families, and it’s going to be them who will miss out,” senior leader Lealamanu’a Aiga Caroline Mareko said.
Wellington’s Sisters of Compassion Soup Kitchen currently picked up around 60 boxes a week and getting that food elsewhere could prove tricky.
“It would just be a massive struggle for the organisation to meet the needs of all the guests who come,” manager Sam Johnson said.
The Grenada North warehouse was sold last year and the charity received notice to move out after a new tenant opted not to continue a sublease arrangement.
That arrangement saw the charity pay around $90,000 a year – roughly equivalent to half of market rates – for the 500 square metre warehouse and a 400 square metre carpark.
Paying full market rates was beyond its current finances, Wellington said. The charity was funded by grants from philanthropic trusts and local government, as well as the Ministry of Social Development.
It currently redistributed household goods, including bed linen, electronics and clothing, but might have to discontinue those services.
“We could, unfortunately, close down the non-food side of our operations and we could operate out of maybe 250 square metres inside, with around a 200 square metre yard.”
Ultimately, any decision to close would be for its board, but several weeks would be needed to pack down equipment, and return the warehouse to its original state.
Kiwi Community Assistance board chairman Phil Davies said chasing funding was “almost a full-time role” with rent on its warehouse the biggest cost.
“This is where it's coming down to a debate about whether we can continue to operate as we do.”
Originally running out of a garage, the charity has grown significantly since its launch in 2012 to employing three full-time staff and more than 50 volunteers. "If we can get a warehouse for a nice deal, then it certainly makes it far more viable for us," Davies said.
Wellington Deputy Mayor Ben McNulty said he had “real concerns for the future of food security” in the region if the charity did shutter.
He had looked into setting them up with council-owned premises, but none were suitable.
Instead, he was now inquiring about “grants we could give to help them with moving costs” and contacting local MPs and neighbouring councils for further assistance.
The charity’s food rescue circuit takes in supermarkets throughout the northern suburbs of Wellington and Porirua, including a handful of Woolworths’ supermarkets.
Woolworths community programmes manager Gordon Harcourt said it “would be devastating if Kiwi Community Assistance had to close".
He was confident the company “would make it work” either way, as preventing food going to landfill was one of its main priorities.
Woolworths already planned to give the charity a grant of $26,000, Harcourt said, but would expedite that process so they received the funding sooner.
“If we had a spare warehouse, we'd love to have Tracy in it … but no, I don’t think we have the kind of space Kiwi Community Assistance needs.”
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