Harvest Church community dinner serving more people than ever

Chevelle Tunnell preparing the Wednesday meal at Te Puke's Harvest Church.

It started with around a dozen diners, but the weekly community meal at Te Puke's Harvest Church last week served its largest number of people.

The Wednesday night meals began in October 2020.

''Last year when we started we had 12-20 people, including volunteers,'' Chevelle Tunnell told Te Puke Times as she worked over a hot stove making last week's meal.

A Christmas meal in 2020 saw around 60 diners, but last week more than 70 people tucked into burrito bowls and apple crumble.

Chevelle is a member of one of four teams that take it in turns to prepare the meal to spread the load.

The meals attract the town's rough sleepers and RSE workers and Chevelle says there has been a noticeable difference in the number attending since the most recent lockdown, particularly an increase in the number of working people or people who have lost their jobs due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

''We might have an increase again with people potentially losing their jobs through vaccination circumstances,'' she says.

''For people who come in, it does seem to make a difference.''

During the most recent lockdown, meals couldn't be provided under alert level 4, and were available for collection only under alert level 3, with a team who were all in the same bubble making up the meals.

The Hub Te Puke provides food for the community meal and a menu based on what is available.

At first, the volunteers did everything including cleaning and washing-up, but a wash station was introduced and more and more of those coming to the church for the meal began to step up to clean up.

The meals are served at 5.30pm each Wednesday.