Right Place, Right Time / Beth Schryvers, the woman behind the Kairos Free Store
Kairos Free Store founder Beth Schryvers reflects on the success of her hunger-busting, food waste-based charitable venture. Launched in Christchurch a year ago, the free store is making a big contribution to community wellbeing in the central city.
As a child growing up in England, Beth Schryvers would probably never have dreamed that one day she’d be living in New Zealand where she would make a real difference through her work to establish a free store charity project to feed the hungry in Christchurch.
She has done this while carving out a career in hospitality. The fast-paced yet fulfilling lifestyle suits this 28-year-old, whose compassionate focus really has benefitted a lot of people in the city.
Beth was a teenager when her family moved here, initially settling in Cromwell. A job in hospitality is something she sought out after leaving school.
‘I was 18 when I started working for a restaurant in Invercargill and I worked there for four years,’ Beth says. ‘I found that I loved the customer service side of it – I really enjoyed it. It is not just a job for me anymore; it’s a career. I then worked for Allpress Espresso for five years, looking after barista training for the South Island, while overseeing the operation of their Christchurch café and Lux Espresso.’
To that, she added the Kairos Free Store, whose sole purpose is to collect surplus food from cafés and redistribute it to hungry people in need. She spent 18 months planning it all out before last October’s launch of the non-profit store in the central city. How she managed to do it, on top of everything else, is beyond me. As the 28-year-old tells it, the vision came first. It was then just a question of working back from that to make it happen.
‘I first heard about the free store movement, which began in Wellington in 2010 when I was studying theology and leadership at the Grace Vineyard Church. I knew we needed it in Christchurch too and with my background in hospitality it felt like a no-brainer that I should be the one to bring it here. My first steps involved visiting The Free Store in Wellington, volunteering there and making contact with the founder to get advice on whether a free store could be viable in Christchurch. Their guidance on how to get things established and where to start was a massive help. This was something I was mostly doing by myself after work so I couldn’t rush it, but I knew it was going to happen as long as I kept chipping away.’
‘Kairos’ is a Greek word meaning ‘the right moment’. Beth says the word popped into her head one day and felt like the perfect one to use for her free store endeavour. ‘The broader meaning of Kairos is that sense of the right thing happening for the right reason and at the right time. Kai is also the
Māori word for food and that’s also a beautiful connection.’
Pulling all the pieces together was a painstaking process, but Beth feels ‘Kairos’ was with her all the way. ‘Everything that was needed was donated. We got the volunteers and everything gradually fell into place.’
Next door to Allpress Espresso is RNP Homes, whose owner Richard Preston was quick to appreciate what Beth was trying to achieve. He donated a brand new shipping container and had it fitted out. Architectural designer Darren Paddock, director of 3DFactory, provided all the drawings and architectural work pro bono. Grace Vineyard Church donated land in St Asaph Street for the store, while Tinka Design repurposed a supermarket trolley for collecting food.
‘It has industrial wheels and is fully canvassed so it can be taken out even if it’s raining. The volunteers literally push it around the CBD to collect the food. I didn’t want to add pollution by having people drive around to make the collections… It’s usually a one-and-a-half-hour round trip for the volunteers, who get out there in all winds and weathers with their umbrellas. They’re invaluable; Kairos Free Store couldn’t operate without them.’
Having worked in hospitality for years, Beth is acutely aware of the amount of food waste that even a busy café can produce. Kairos Free Store is helping to address that problem in Christchurch. On average, the store’s volunteers are collecting around 1600 items a month from 27 city cafés. These items are predominantly bread or dough-based, such as muffins, scones, sandwiches and cakes.
‘It ’s beautiful café food, fresh from that day; it just hasn’t sold.’
For the contributing cafés that previously had a food waste problem, Kairos Free Store provides a welcome solution. Their surplus food is collected every Wednesday and Friday afternoon, put in containers and wheeled by trolley to the container store at 311 St Asaph Street (open from 5.30 pm on those days) where it is displayed on shelves ready to be handed out by volunteers. (Incidentally, Kairos welcomes enquiries from other cafés interested in partnering with them as a supplier. Collections are scheduled to suit café timetables).
No longer wasted, the surplus food is instead given away to the city’s hungry.
‘Some people start arriving from 3 pm, so they’re waiting for more than two hours just for a little food to help them through the next few days. The people who come are an eclectic bunch from all different walks of life: a mix of homeless people, families, the elderly, single parents, students and backpackers. It has become its own community and some volunteer here too so they’re giving services back to us.’
Everyone is welcome. ‘It has become a safe place where people know each other and enjoy each other’s company – it’s almost like a big family.’
Any food left after the store closes is dropped to the City Mission. ‘Nothing ever gets wasted.’
Kairos Free Store could not function without its volunteers, whose efforts are coordinated through an online roster system. Some collect food, others serve it out and every shift is also supervised by a volunteer. ‘Anyone interested in joining as a volunteer, or making a donation, can get in touch through the Kairos Free Store website.’
Beth is rightly proud of what she has achieved, noting that it has been a huge learning experience. ‘My biggest satisfaction has come from actually being there and seeing it in operation and seeing how many people it has benefitted. That has been my reward.’
Her desire to give back is shared by her husband Nick, who is currently studying towards a Diploma in Health and Human Behaviour. ‘We’re passionate about the same things – community, people and coffee!’
Beth has recently moved to Nelson to join Nick there and to take a coordination role with Sublime Coffee Roasters. She has now handed over the reins of Kairos to new managers Stuart and Sarah Ennor, who bring a background in local charitable work to the role. Beth continues to be very closely involved.
Looking ahead at what the future may hold for the Kairos Free Store, Beth sees no reason why it cannot continue to organically evolve as long as there are volunteers to keep it going. She loves the idea of opening another free store somewhere else in New Zealand too. ‘I started it here in Christchurch, but really it has taken on a life of its own. Now that I’m in Nelson, I’ll potentially look at opening one up here one day!
On average, the store’s volunteers are collecting around 1600 items a month from 27 city cafés.