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Home / Bay of Plenty Times

Feet First Fundraiser: Auckland to Te Puke walk for community support

By Stuart Whitaker
SunLive·
19 Jul, 2025 02:23 AM3 mins to read

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The Hub Te Puke chairman Lee Harrison will walk 250km from Auckland to Te Puke. Photos / Luke Edwards

The Hub Te Puke chairman Lee Harrison will walk 250km from Auckland to Te Puke. Photos / Luke Edwards

If someone suggested walking the 250km from Auckland to Te Puke, a fair question would be: Why?

The Hub Te Puke general manager Scott Nicholson and chairman Lee Harrison are preparing to do just that, and there are two answers.

Firstly, it is a chance to acknowledge and raise awareness of the struggles people might be facing in their everyday lives and, secondly, it is a way to help The Hub be better equipped to help.

Nicholson and Harrison will start their trek from Britomart in Auckland on August 18, walking an average of 25km a day to finish in Te Puke on August 29.

The idea stemmed from a discussion between the pair after Harrison heard about a neighbour’s housemate who had experienced long-term struggles with mental health and who, one day, left and somehow found his way to Auckland.

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His neighbour assumed he had walked.

“We were discussing this and about there being aspects of it that are the unseen side of people’s mental health, or even just other issues they might be facing in their lives,” Nicholson said.

“They do what they need to do to get through.”

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They felt a walk ending at “home” might be a good way to raise awareness of the issues.

 The Hub Te Puke general manager Scott Nicholson will walk 250km from Auckland to Te Puke. Photos / Luke Edwards
The Hub Te Puke general manager Scott Nicholson will walk 250km from Auckland to Te Puke. Photos / Luke Edwards

“There’s also the fact that we are here as a support organisation for our community, and while we can’t do everything, we definitely try to assist people where we can.”

The other part of what had become known as the Feet First Fundraiser was to encourage more people to support the charitable trust’s work.

“We are getting good support from many businesses, and we do get some support from the Government, but we realised we do need to boost our support in terms of micro donations from general supporters,” Harrison said.

The micro supporters are those who donate a small amount on a regular basis, Harrison said.

“So that’s anything from as little as $5 a month and our goal is to try and get 500 new monthly supporters,” Nicholson said.

“The more people we get giving just a little bit means that we can do a whole lot more for everybody in the community.”

The services provided by The Hub, and possibly even its very existence, was under threat prior to Christmas due to funding shortfalls.

Nicholson said the Feet First Fundraiser was in part a response to that, although financially the trust was now in a much better position.

“Financially, we are doing well but we also just don’t want to sit back and wait for the next shock or wait for the next crisis.

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“We want to proactively build support within the community and with business and other organisations so we can be sure of our funding and sure of our ability to support the community.”

The later part of winter was also a time when demand for The Hub’s services tracked upwards.

“With the end of kiwifruit [work income] and colder weather, often demand starts to rise and from now on we expect to see numbers needing support around food to continue to increase.”

Nicholson and Harrison were both well into their preparation for the walk.

They had been helped by Jono Crawford at Te Puke Box Gym, who had also advised on how they could avoid injuries.

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