Community pantries to help those in need

HELP YOURSELF: Gisborne Boys' High School students, from left, Vinson Parata, Sam Moa, Gareth Van Vuuren and Jayden Mihaka have created the not-for-profit organisation Sun UpCycle, which is building community food pantries to put in suburbs around Gisborne. Anyone wanting to help is welcome to contact the group. Picture by Paul Rickard

A goal to feed the hungry and help the community is the basis of a Young Enterprise Scheme (YES) project.

Gisborne Boys' High students Sam Moa, Vinson Parata, Gareth Van Vuuren and Jayden Mihaka came up with the idea of creating community food pantries where people can “take what you need and leave what you can”.

They created the not-for-profit organisation Sun UpCycle. Their goal is to put 10 community pantries in suburbs around Gisborne by the end of the year.

The first pantry was launched yesterday and is located at Sport Gisborne Tairawhiti at 74 Grey St.

“We were struggling to find an idea for our YES business scheme and we wanted to help the community, too,” Sun UpCycle chief executive Sam said.

“There is a lot of food that goes to waste and people are going hungry because of a lack of food.”

They came up with the idea at the start of the year and did some work on the pantries during the Covid-19 Alert Level 4 lockdown.

A couple of organisations reached out to Sun UpCycle.

Taiki E! Impact House helped the students bring their idea to life by offering business support and mentorship.

“Leaderbrand offered to donate food but it would have needed to have been refrigerated,” said Sam.

“Most of the food will come from the community but organisations can donate.”

From next week Sun Upcycle will start building their next pantry at the Tairawhiti Menzshed base.

They plan to locate it in Kaiti.

Sun UpCycle are on the lookout for people or organisations to host the pantries.

There are rules on the side of the pantry and a QR code that when scanned takes you to the

The website shows locations and a “get involved” area for those keen to help.