Good Neighbour has great friends

Legacy Funerals director Mike Savage (centre) donated $10,000 to Jason Rowling (left) and Campbell Hill from Good Neighbour. Photo / George Novak

A $10,000 donation to a local charity has given them the boost they need to keep transforming the community while working towards their dream of finding a building and setting up a commercial kitchen.

Legacy Trust donated $10,000 to Tauranga's Good Neighbour which runs community gardens, a food rescue service and carries out neighbourhood projects for those in need.

Good Neighbour trust co-ordinator Campbell Hill said the donation was "massive" for the organisation.

"The money's going in towards our operating costs for running Good Neighbour," he told the Bay of Plenty Times. "We've got quite a bit on with the community gardens and expanding our food rescue."

Most recently they also organised for the backyard and bathroom of cystic fibrosis sufferers and sisters Kristie Purton and Nikki Reynolds-Wilson to be done up and more than 40 volunteers turned up to help.

"There's always a cost involved in those sorts of things," he said.

The charity has also recently been connecting with terminally ill people to help them and their families out in their last days.

Good Neighbour was working towards finding a building to run all its projects from and were hopeful they may one day be able to afford to set up a commercial kitchen they could use for community projects and to educate people about the minimisation of food waste.

"That'll be huge when that happens," Mr Hill said.

Legacy Funerals director Mike Savage said the donation was one way to give back to the community.

"We felt this was a really good project to be involved with. It's just a wonderful concept - to support the Good Neighbour trust to support the community."

Mr Savage said the community gardens, like the one in Welcome Bay, were vital to the community. "It's helping people to grow produce which is going to be beneficial for the community. It's starting at grass roots."