Te Puke's Poutiri Trust has started a new initiative aimed at supporting families wanting to grow food of their own.
The whānau ora māra kai initiative has so far seen families provided with wooden crates that are being converted to vegetable gardens.
Trust general manager Kirsty Maxwell-Crawford says the initiativeis about supporting the community to be able to have greater access to affordable healthy food.
''We are supporting about 20 families as well as a couple of puna reo and kohanga reo, largely between Ōtamarākau and Te Puke, but we also have families we work with in Pāpāmoa and The Mount,'' says Kirsty.
''For us, it's about supporting families who are really interested in returning to something that was very natural, which was maintaining their own vegetable garden.''
Families have been provided with kiwifruit or avocado crates, a lining, compost, potting mix and plants.
''This is the first stage and now we are waiting for the next lot of crates. It's also a good opportunity for recycling and reusing. The crates are great for older people who want to re-establish manageable gardens, because they are raised and easier to maintain.''
Being in crates means the gardens are also suitable for those in rental properties as they are contained and ultimately, if required, can be moved.
Trust staff have been delivering and putting the gardens together and there will be ongoing support for maintaining the gardens.
''This is joint work we are doing across two of our Poutiri services - our whānau ora service and our MSD post Covid community connector service.''
The trust has the support of Te Puke Mitre 10 and Tui Garden products.
On behalf of the Kainga Tupu Taskforce, The Hub Te Puke, COLAB and Poutiri Trust is working on food security plan.
''Food security a huge issue in our region, with rising living costs. With the tripling of demand on food bank and other community resources, it's really important that we are able to be proactive in helping families to also be able to create their own food security.
''We really appreciate the great work that the local food bank does, but I think it's just as important that we also have other options where families can maintain gardens and share with local pataka kai (stands where people can leave surplus vegetables) or take extra produce to The Daily.
''The more options of those sorts of things we've got across our community, the more we can share some of the burden because, with living costs around housing so high, it means affordable food is not within everybody's reach.''
Kirsty says as well as the obvious issues that creates, there are also impacts on health and wellbeing and on family stress levels.
''So, if we can do our part to help to reduce that, then it's a real privileged to support the families in this way.''
