Piles of clothing and other donated items line up outside Nadine Gaunt's garden. Photo / Warren Buckland
Piles of clothing and other donated items line up outside Nadine Gaunt's garden. Photo / Warren Buckland
Nadine Gaunt is surrounded by boxes of donated goods at her Havelock North home.
The piles upon piles are all for a good cause, her social enterprise Re-Source, but the novelty of the influx of clutter is starting to wear thin.
The Hawke's Bay-founded organisation which keeps recyclables out oflandfill and gives them to the needy, is itself in need of a home.
Gaunt came up with the idea of Re-Source, which provides a collection and storage service for used clothing and homewares, in Hastings, Havelock North and Napier years ago.
Re-Source is operated out of Gaunt's home, a friend's house in Napier and a garage space in Hastings.
Re-source founder Nadine Gaunt's home is running out of space for donated items. Photo / Warren Buckland.
"The very early stages started when I was re-homing the clothes my children had outgrown.
"I handed them over to Te Taiwhenua o Heretaunga for free. This was about 10 years ago.
"Over 100,000 tonnes of textiles are dumped into New Zealand landfill every year. The system we have is not working and Re-Source was started to keep usable items out of the landfill and into the hands of people in need.
"Items that are not suitable for immediate use are recycled and upcycled as far as possible keeping waste to an absolute minimum."
The people Re-Source supplies to either cannot afford to buy these goods (new or second hand) or buying them leaves a large deficit in their household income, Gaunt said.
"There are people in our community who are sleeping without warm bedding, children who are cold at night. I had a social worker approach me to enquire about pots and blankets for a single mum with three kids who had one cooking pot and no blankets.
"Having social workers get our donated clothes and household goods directly in the homes of those in need makes a huge difference.
"These aren't poor quality items, they are dumped by people who may be goods rich but time poor."
Weleda have been giving them returned stock which has been passed on to Women's Refuge and a Homeless Persons initiative run from Hastings Church.
"Re-Source is not an op-shop. We collect clothes and homewares from homes and businesses and store them until they are needed by community support organisations who then distribute them to people in need. These people are not buying from op shops, they are simply doing without.
"Re-Source saves organisations from investing space, staff hours and money into managing an onsite donation centre."
Environment Centre Hawke's Bay is also keeping toxic waste and recyclables out of the landfill. Photo / Patrick O'Sullivan
Gaunt would rather live with boxes of donated items than have them go to landfill but she's running out of space.
"As we have a suitable space to work from we can reduce the strain on local op shops by stripping their waste textiles and reducing their landfill costs as well as easing the strain on the environment.
"We aim to become as self sustaining as possible. At the moment we are bound by the sheer volume of donations and that we are working from my home and three other locations 15-25 minutes apart.
"With a suitable space we can have items displayed effectively so community workers can drop in, pick what they need quickly and efficiently and get them in the hands who need them."
To be most effective they need to work at the rate the community turns over products, she said.
"Ideally we would have a warehouse type space to operate out of. We are in the process of becoming a registered charity and hoping that helps."
* Do you have a suitable space for Re-Source? Contact Gaunt on resourcehb@gmail.com.
