Kelly Francis is a finalist in NZ Gardener's 2022 Gardener of the Year competition. Photo / Facebook / Whenua Warrior
Kelly Francis is a finalist in NZ Gardener's 2022 Gardener of the Year competition. Photo / Facebook / Whenua Warrior
Whenua Warrior Kelly Francis has built hundreds of raised gardens from Kaitaia to Christchurch, helping communities to have access to fresh, healthy food to eat and share.
Six years ago Francis seemed to have it all. A corporate job, an apartment on the North Shore and an ambitious fiance. Sowhy did she chuck it all in for “gumboots and mud”?
“We were well off, we had all the things that we were taught we needed to be happy but the happiness never turned up,” Francis told Kim Hill.
“I had done my dash. Done my studying, climbed the corporate ladder but then Sunday would roll around and I would think I don’t have enough energy to get through another week of this.”
After being made redundant from her job in corporate tourism and moving on from her then fiance, Francis left her Albany apartment and moved into a caravan out the back of her friend’s house in Manurewa. It was here where she started making meaningful connections in te ao Māori, first by learning the language across the road at the primary school, “starting from the kids’ songs”.
She did a year of landscape work and on her second-to-last day the words ‘whenua warrior’ popped into mind.
Francis now runs Whenua Warrior, a charitable trust that supports communities to grow their own food by building and installing raised gardens. The charity provides the material and the seedlings, as well as the knowledge to support people to successfully grow kai.
Working in a garden helps you to focus on the quality of the food, connecting your energy to the land and understanding that the food that’s created is far more important than going up to the supermarket and paying for your silverbeet there, Francis says.
“It also helps me understand that the Earth needs to be protected and supported more than our need to get to our office. There are things far more important than making money.
Free gardens built for a New Lynn Māori dairy owner who wants to grow fresh food and give it away to the community with their purchases. Photo / Kelly Francis
“If you were able to concentrate your energy onto a garden and a space where you can all be together then it’s affordable mentally, spiritually and it’s a space where you can thrive. People need to come away from the idea of needing money to continue their lifestyles - we sell our time, get money, buy food but imagine if we were to skip all that and go straight from waking up to creating food sources and spending that time with our families.”
When Whenua Warrior started it would take about a week to set up a garden box for someone, Francis says, now they do four garden boxes per day, per team and they have two teams working five days per week.
Funding is through donations but Francis is hopeful the initiative will receive government funding in the future to help look after people and build sustainable solutions.
There is certainly a need, Francis says.
“We’ve been running for five years and in that time we’ve done just over 1200 gardens from Kaitaia down to Christchurch. Last year we did a major project in South Auckland where we were funding for 300 gardens and in our first two weeks, we got 480 registrations so it shows us this is something the community needs.”
Four months after the installation, Whenua Warrior offers a seedling replant and builds up knowledge around seasonal crops.
And the gardens have been successful.
Families start off with the one box and build extra, Francis says.
People grow food in their backyards and give it to friends and communities, taking their produce to church and making preserves. She receives photos of people proud of their gardens and produce.
