It takes a lot of tucker to power nearly 15,000 young athletes for a week but luckily Tauranga charity Good Neighbour knows a thing or two about feeding masses.

This year, Good Neighbour volunteers will help dish up 3880 meals to Zespri Aims athletes, using rescued food that would otherwise go to waste.

It’s a win-win-win – as Good Neighbour general manager Renee Hanna explained – they’re able to supply nutritious meals below market cost, using donated food items, while fundraising to help locals.

“We try and keep costs down as much as possible, because lots of schools and communities work really hard to fundraise just to get here,” Hanna said.

“There’s no one else like Good Neighbour in New Zealand, we’re a local, community-based organisation and we feel very proud of Aims because it’s a huge thing for a city like Tauranga.”

The annual intermediate-aged sporting tournament starts tomorrow, September 5, with 14,506 athletes from 467 schools hitting the city to play in a range of sporting codes.

Volunteers from Zespri helping prepare meals for the Zespri Aims Games 2026 at Good Neighbour. Photo / Jamie Troughton, D’scribe Media

Organisers said last year’s Aims Games attracted 23,425 visitors to the city and generated $9,751,958 in tourism expenditure.

The net benefit to Tauranga was $5,806,942 – a significant jump from the last time it was measured, at $4.33 million in 2024.

And Good Neighbour’s involvement in the tournament is a double-edged sword – at the end of the week, the charity will gratefully accept any leftover the food teams may have.

“Snack foods are something we have a really high demand for,” Hanna said. “They’re ideal for kids’ school lunches, so it’s really awesome when that sort of thing comes in, but we also get a lot of bananas and boxes of cereal, all of which is really helpful to local families.”

More than 300 volunteers help keep Good Neighbour ticking, including a team from tournament sponsor Zespri, who popped in last week to help prepare Aims meals.

Good Neighbour supplies 7200 meals every week, rescues $4.8m of food and has branched out into a range of valuable community services, like lawn mowing, garden clean-ups, youth employment programmes and firewood.

“Having an event like Aims here in Tauranga helps showcase other cool things about the city, such as all the amazing volunteers we have at Good Neighbour,” Hanna said.

“I really like that it shows people outside of Tauranga what can be achieved.”