A meal when you need it most
Andrea Warn was getting to the end of her tether.
Uprooted from her red stickered home with her husband and two children on August 18, Warn realised she hadn’t sat down for a meal before 9pm for 10 days, so she reached out to the Big Bake Up, a community service hooking up home bakers and cooks making kai for those who need it, and meals were brought around to the family.
‘‘We just sat around the table together and had a good laugh and a glass of wine and oh my goodness did we need that,’’ Warn said. ‘‘That’s therapy. That’s the impact those people have, providing baking.’’
Melissa Woodhouse started the Big Bake Up around a year ago when Westport was flooded – making four trips down the West Coast from her home in Wakefield to drop off food.
After the rain event in Nelson, things really ‘‘ramped up’’, so Woodhouse and her partner dropped off care packages so those affected didn’t have to go to the supermarket – ‘‘because let’s face it, most of us hate going to the supermarket at the best of times’’.
But those affected by the floods in particular, ‘‘have got other things going on and they can’t really think straight’’, meaning food planning, procurement and preparation might be at the end of a frantic todo list, Woodhouse said.
Deliveries might be titbits for school lunches, groceries, baking or evening meals distributed to those in need, often through word of mouth, or through community hubs like schools.
Woodhouse reckoned she’s delivered several hundred care packs.
The Big Bake Up has also been donated baking from The Bakery at Wakefield, treats from Raw Goodness and bikkies from Cookie Time.
Woodhouse says when you talk about food donations, the first thing people think of is financial difficulties, but that’s not often the case, rather ‘‘there’s just stuff happening’’ and those affected are flat out exhausted.
Some families have got multiple things going on: ‘‘their house might be affected, but then their parents are affected too’’.
‘‘We’re quite graceful as Kiwis, we don’t all like to go and ask for help,’’ she said.
‘‘But let’s face it, just a night off cooking is bliss.’’
From previous experience through former cyclone Gita doing similar work, she’s aware this will be a long process for homeowners – dealing with insurance, EQC, finding a home, or having your home repaired, which might take place while you are living in it.
With five kids of her own, Woodhouse is already pretty busy. Asked why she does what she does, she says if something happened to her or her family, she’d appreciate the same care given to her.
‘‘I would appreciate someone coming out with an evening meal so I didn’t have to cook. I would appreciate some home baking so my kids have just got something to eat without me having to rush to the supermarket to buy some stuff.
‘‘I just do what I would like to receive myself if I was in the same place in the same circumstance.’’
The recipients are sometimes ‘‘overwhelmed’’.
‘‘They’re obviously already emotional and then that sort of triggers it, reading what someone has put on the container or realising that someone has baked that and it has come to them.’’
‘‘I just do what I would like to receive myself if I was in the same place in the same circumstance.’’ Melissa Woodhouse
To get in touch contact: www. facebook.com/thebigbakeup/