Tauranga's helping hands

Good Neighbour Trust members John Paine, Jason Rowling, Todd Rowling and Campbell Hill. Photo: Tracy Hardy.

Good Neighbour may be celebrating their first birthday, but in just 12 months this community organisation has grown in leaps and bounds... and there's big plans for the future.

Good Neighbour is about creating a sense of community through inspiring people to work together to make our neighbourhoods great places to live.

Neighbourhood Projects helps those who need support with practical love in action such as firewood, garden care and so much more.

Community Gardens arm aims to develop allotment-type gardens in various locations around our city to grow vegetables and community.

Food Rescue gathers food from supermarkets and cafes, – recently partnering with Food Stuffs – to redistribute to over 20 charitable organisations. They're currently rescuing 1.5 tonne/week of food from a variety of sources. This initiative is been driven by the awesome efforts of John and Jackie Paine and Lavina Good.

The organisation began out of a trip to Fiji. Trustees Jason Rowling, Campbell Hill and Todd Rowling along with a building team travelled to Fiji to build a medical dispensary which supplies four remote villages. It was an inspiring trip.

'We caught something over there and had a desire to help our own community here in Tauranga,” says Campbell.

'We thought, ‘How can we do this in our own backyard?' That idea began to develop into Good Neighbour and the three things we wanted to do - putting neighbour back into neighbourhood, practically helping people and connecting those who are struggling with hope and joy. It's just developed from there.”

Good Neighbour has gone from strength to strength, taking the Supreme Award at the Trustpower Tauranga Community Awards last year.

'It has been a leap of faith,” says Campbell. 'Initially we didn't know how we were going to be supported. Carmel Country Estate Retirement Village came on board early as one of our major sponsors along with Brookfield New World and Pacific Toyota. Toyota have sponsored a Hilux Ute which has been amazing. A huge thanks to all our volunteers and business sponsors too.

Good Neighbour's next phase is to look for a premise which we can all operate out of.

'We need somewhere to house our three departments in one central location,” explains Jason. 'We have 200-plus volunteers, and an admin staff who need an office to work out of. It's about creating that sense of community and helping transform communities in Tauranga.”

Ideally, premises that in the future could allow us to develop a commercial kitchen and café to integrate education around food and waste minimisation. All profit would go back into the community.

If you have a location or building available and would love to partner with us call Jason on 027 4727 658, or would like to know more about how to get involved with Good Neighbour, visit goodneighbour.co.nz

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