Give a meal this May, asks food charity
This month food charity Kaibosh is asking people to give a meal to the hungry by donating the value of a meal out.
Twenty dollars provides the equivalent of 29 meals to local people in need.
Kaibosh Food Rescue is the middle man between food retailers and community groups working to reduce poverty and food waste in Wellington, the Hutt Valley, Ka¯ piti, and Horowhenua.
General manager Matt Dagger said they had budgeted for $35,000 to be raised from this fundraiser, but Covid-19 restrictions would reduce that at a time when people most needed their help.
As an organisation working in the food chain and a key social service provider, Kaibosh had been operating through the Covid-19 crisis.
The money raised would go towards covering their overheads as a business, such as petrol, staff, and rent.
Seven days a week their vans are on the road rescuing quality surplus food from local businesses – supermarkets, logistics companies, farmers’ markets, factories and farms.
Normally each May the charity would ask people to get together for a meal with friends or family, and then each person donates to Kaibosh what they would have spent on a meal out.
People all over the Wellington region got together for potlucks, barbecues, morning teas, after work drinks and nibbles, three course dinners, and ha¯ ngi.
This is an impossible suggestion under Covid-19 level 3 regulations, and many of us are sick of our own cooking.
While people can’t get together for a meal, there would be plenty of money saved from not eating out which people could donate.
Already each day the charity rescued up to 2500 kilograms of food and redistributed it to charities, who pass it on to their clients, providing the equivalent of up to 7000 meals to local people in need.
Their 250-strong volunteer program was on hold due to Covid-19 restrictions, so they were operating from only their Wellington base, one of three in the region, with a paid staff of seven.
Kaibosh supplied food to 32 distribution agencies, down from 90 before Covid-19 lockdown, and all of them were reporting a 300 per cent increase in what they needed.
‘‘We pick up the food from the donors, it comes back to the base for sorting and allocating to the charities per their requirement.’’
Their volunteer program would be resuming at level 2.
‘‘One of the big challenges has been keeping our volunteers away,’’ Dagger said.
Their May fundraiser was also a great opportunity to raise awareness, and he hoped people would get behind it this year.
‘‘A lot of people are really doing it tough and we foresee that continuing into level 3 and then level 2.’’