New truck on a fresh fooddrive
Thousands more people will have fresh food thanks to donations that have put Kiwi Community Assistance in the driving seat of a new $27,000 chiller truck.
Founded by Tracy and Phil Wellington, the charity rescues tonnes of edible food from being thrown out and gives it to local emergency food programmes, charities and schools.
The couple were recently flown to Westport by catering company Rainbow Cake Kitchen to buy the 2.7 tonne truck for the business, with financial support from Wellington organisations.
Rainbow managing director Matthew McManus admired the charity’s efforts and bought two new front tyres, paid for work to be completed on the truck’s brakes and bought the Wellingtons a Cook Strait crossing home.
Tracy Wellington said funding from Porirua Community Trust, Wellington City Council and local supermarkets enables the charity to fill the truck’s internal storage measuring 3.1 metres long by 1.6m wide with as much food as possible.
‘‘The truck has made a big difference to our daily operations; you only have a 30 minute window to get the food into a fridge or freezer otherwise you are breaking safe food handling codes. Owning a chiller truck means we can hit the road and stay on the road until the whole circuit is done,’’ she said.
Leftover funds have been used to pay for road user charges, a cer- tificate of fitness, mileage for the next year, plus insurance and branding of the truck
‘‘Rather than completing a three-and-a-half hour circuit, we’re now doing it in around twoand-a-half hours, so it’s a lot quicker. We survived quite a long time without the truck, because we had to, but it’s a relief to finally have it.’’
The charity has delivered just over 70,000 kilograms of food since the beginning of the year, equating to 201,200 350 gram meals or 29,000 full stomachs.
But with increasing demand, Wellington is always in need of volunteers.
She is looking to fill two roles that involve rescuing food and sorting donations in the charity’s warehouse: ’’We can’t keep helping people if we don’t have the volunteers to do it.’’
For more information about volunteering for Kiwi Community Assistance, visit the website kca.org.nz