From corporate life to gardening lessons
Kelly Marie Francis threw away corporate life to feed New Zealanders in need – by teaching them gardening. She was in New Plymouth recently to spread her message. She caught up with writer Sonja Slinger while in town.
Kelly Marie Francis has no regard for money, nor the corporate world she once moved in. The 31-year-old was once a tourism consultant selling travel packages and living an upmarket life in a swanky Auckland apartment. But she was not happy.
Now she lives in an old cowshed in South Auckland (she moved out of a rundown caravan to do so), teaching people how to grow food and reach out to communities in need. She couldn’t be happier.
She has passion and charisma, and a warmth that attracts people to her and she is harnessing that to realise her vision – to have a harvestable garden available to every person in the country.
In two years, she has built nearly 300 gardens in people’s backyards and in towns throughout the north and around Auckland and last week she was spreading her message in Taranaki. She is known as the whenua (land) warrior.
‘‘I want to feed all New Zealanders. This is not for Ma¯ ori or any other race or culture, it is for everyone,’’ she says.
‘‘There are desperate people in this country, hungry families, hungry kids – let’s feed them but let’s empower them to feed themselves by growing their food. I will teach them how to do it and motivate communities to help each other.’’
Francis is inspiring and extremely motivating, one of those people who make you tingle when you hear her speak.
She is also Ma¯ ori, and proud of it. But she is not out there to ram Ma¯ ori tikanga or the wrongs of the past down anyone’s throat.
‘‘I grew up in Manurewa and yes, I was brown, but I didn’t know anything about being Ma¯ ori. I was not raised Ma¯ ori. We were Pa¯ keha¯ as.’’
She went to decile 1 James Cook High School and did reasonably well.
‘‘I was good at school but I would dumb myself down a lot. It wasn’t a school to be smart in, you got beaten up.’’
Her parents split and she stayed with mum, who is Ma¯ ori while her brother went with her German/ Lebanese father. She left James Cook High after year 12 and embarked on a one-year course at Auckland’s New Zealand school of Travel and Tourism, a journey her mother put her on because it gave her a future.
Upon graduating, she landed a job in Parnell selling Kiwi travel experiences, mainly to young overseas backpackers. She went on to work at several corporates in Auckland and overseas, moving up in the career world and becoming engaged to an Italian businessman who she spent seven years with.
That relationship ended. The
‘‘There is mana from providing kai. The first time I gave a box of food to a friend who was struggling, I felt like a goddess.’’ Kelly Marie Francis
happiness Kelly searched for was not found there, nor in her career.
‘‘I was living in a two-bedroom modern apartment, in a neighbourhood I never felt I belonged in and at 28, I was made redundant. But for the first time I sat down and thought, what do I want? What makes me happy?
‘‘I was ugly and I was angry. I couldn’t rip myself out of bed. I had been told to go to uni, get a good job, get the ring on your finger and then you’ll be happy. It never happened.’’
She returned home, to heal in a way, and to south Auckland and shacked up in a friend’s caravan on her back lawn.
‘‘For the first time, I was free of every type of pressure and stress, and the ugliness of it all.’’
She delved into self-help books, learned to meditate and tried yoga. She began to look inward and discover who she really was, including her whakapapa and in being Maori.
She started learning te reo and enrolled in a kai oranga class (which teaches traditional and contemporary food and sustainable practices of Ma¯ ori). For income, she took up a job driving diggers and heavy machinery for a landscaping firm in Auckland. The job pushed her to a mental breakdown.
‘‘It felt wrong to be ripping trees out and putting down cement. I was learning how to look after Papatuanuku and here I was ripping thousands of trees out. I had a breakdown at work, I couldn’t do it any more, I couldn’t function.
‘‘Kai oranga changed my life. For the first time, I stayed on a marae. For the first time, I karakiad and for the first time, felt Ma¯ ori.’’
‘‘I had been disconnected to everything Ma¯ ori. I couldn’t speak it.
‘‘Everybody has to have the world of Ma¯ ori in their life, it doesn’t matter how broken you are.
Ma¯ oridom is non-judgmental, there is something in Ma¯ oridom that allows you to heal.’’
Her kai oranga course exposed her to new thinking and to the old traditions of food and growing, how to eat well and nourish the body and soul. Kelly began to feel good about herself and her journey in life. It had awakened her connection to the earth and something spiritual when she planted.
Last year, at Kokiri Marae she listened to a man who wanted to build 100 gardens in 100 homes in Mangere. It felt good to her and she wanted to help. Six weeks later, the gardens were in and seeds sown for Francis to become the whenua warrior.
This February she established Whenua Warrior as a charitable trust to continue her work and her gardens keep growing and popping up in backyards and in towns all over northland and Auckland with her aim to spread the harvests and knowledge of kai oranga across Aotearoa.
Francis (of Nga¯ ti Wharara, Nga¯ ti Korokoro and Nga¯ puhi) has a natural affinity with people and involving them is how her community gardens work. She needs no advertising, people find her.
‘‘I want to help all New Zealanders but it’s the ones who are in need who find me,’’ she says.
‘‘I don’t want to give people gardens, the people need to want this, to buy into it. If I went along and set everything up, gave them all the materials, and did the mahi, it wouldn’t work.’’
All gardens are built on donations from the community, from individuals who know someone who has seeds, or soil, or compost or materials, or companies willing to get involved.
Each garden is different, depending on need. For example, she built a garden in a community with gang affiliations. ‘‘These kids here, who I want to feed, know a rough life, they see a lot.’’ The garden had no fancy edges or foods, just basic kai and a peaceful non-judgmental atmosphere where kids can run in and grab food on their way to school or come sit and be among plants, to feel safe. Once a garden is established, there must be commitment from families so there is a core of people that work together to ensure the food is available and that the garden continues to be supported and managed.
Kelly, who is based in her converted cowshed at Ihumatao, also runs workshops to educate people, to sow knowledge and encourage communities to grow food and spread the word to others.
‘‘There is mana from providing kai. The first time I gave a box of food to a friend who was struggling, I felt like a goddess. I love to watch people learn something for the first time and I love to spread hope everywhere.
‘‘We are all hungry. If I can help you to survive, help your children to survive, I am a good person in my own home.’’