Pantry feeds town’s needy
Te Aroha kai shed open 24/7 ‘no questions asked’
It started off as a few spare food items in a trolley. Now a fullfledged kai shed by Ra Stucki’s front gate helps to feed a rural Waikato town.
Smiling from the steps of her front porch, Stucki is a bright face surrounded by her vibrant terracotta coloured home, gardens and art galore.
She and her husband, Frank, are in their 80s and retired, and they decided to open the community food shed with hopes that they could make a small impact on Te Aroha.
It is from here that Stucki is giving back to her community in any way she can.
Stucki had noticed the hardship some people were facing because of rising food prices and cost of living expenses, so she felt the urge to do something.
‘‘People are really grasping it now, I think more so than before,’’ she said.
Having been a Christian for many years, Stucki’s religious values kicked in when she hatched the plan to create a kai shed for her community.
‘‘I’d read about another kai shed in the area, I’m pretty sure it was Hamilton, nearly four years ago . . . and I thought, ‘Oh, that is just so good,’ ’’ Stucki said.
‘‘I felt that we had a need here in Te Aroha . . . I had a little trolley, and it was on wheels, so I put it out at the gate and just put a few things in, a loaf of bread and some flour and a few things out of the pantry, and put a little sign up saying ‘Free Kai’. . . A girl took a picture and put it on Facebook, that’s how it sort of started.
‘‘When you haven’t got much, you are hesitant when you go to the supermarket. You’re only going to buy food.
‘‘You’re not going to buy any of those luxuries – some people don’t even have shampoo or conditioner, they don’t have washing powder, they don’t have cleaning agents like us who can afford it have.’’
She encouraged locals to donate surplus food items. Whether it was canned food, fruit and vegetables, bread or even sanitary products, all of it could find a home in the kai shed.
‘‘People were coming, a bit shy at first, wondering what it was all about, and it started to snowball from there,’’ Stucki said.
‘‘We want to be able to feed these people who are struggling and who haven’t got much – that’s the aim of the whole thing, really. It’s just delightful, it works really well.’’
Stucki admires her community and relishes the environment of Te Aroha. And the generous acts have had a ripple effect where some residents have offered to grow vegetables for the kai shed or, on rare occasions, donated clothes and knick-knacks.
Stucki has lived in her home for 15 years and said she’s happy for the odd stranger to come and help themselves to kai shed items. ‘‘Half the time I don’t know who goes in. I know I’ve got regulars . . . We hear people going in through the night,’’ she said.
‘‘It’s about sharing, sharing what you’ve got, and if you’ve got surplus, putting it in there.
‘‘And you may not need anything, but even if you’ve got nothing to put in that’s fine.
‘‘It’s open 24/7: It never closes, no questions asked, anyone can take from that kai shed.’’
Stucki has no intention of stopping the initiative any time soon, though sometimes she worries that her age means she’ll only have so much time to run it.
But she is cheerfully optimistic that someone will carry the torch long after she’s gone and make a small difference in their community as well.
‘‘You give, and you look after those less fortunate than yourselves; you help out. And that’s just what I do.’’