Hare Krishna Food For Life kitchen huge success

The people behind giving free meals to Whangarei's hard up and needy have been amazed at the response to their venture.

Organisers are now looking at expanding by opening the centre for a longer period so more people can be fed.

The Hare Krishna Food For Life kitchen was set up on on Water St a month ago after Krishna devotees in Whangarei noticed increasing levels of poor and hungry people in the city and decided to do something about it.

Buddhi Wilcox, who set up the centre, said he had been amazed at the response to the kitchen, particularly from people donating vegetables for the meals.

"It's been wonderful. We've had all sorts of anonymous people turning up and giving us vegetables, but the word isn't out there yet as well as we would like about the service," Mr Wilcox said.

"We are open from 4pm to 6pm from Wednesday to Friday and regularly feed about 60 people every day.

"We may extend the hours to from noon to 5pm and I think we will get even more people in."

The healthy, vegetarian meals were cooked at the Gopals Krishna food shop in Vine St and taken to the centre, but Mr Wilcox was in the process of putting in a kitchen at the Water St centre so the food could be cooked there ahead of any expansion of opening hours, hopefully in a couple of weeks time.

He said there seemed to be three quite separate and distinct groups taking advantage of the free food, although many people did make a donation for the fare.

"We have the homeless people, then there are the young and displaced - people aged from 14 up who are wandering around. They may have left home or been kicked out by their parents and staying at a friends' place," Mr Wilcox said. "Then the other group is families who are hard up or struggling to make ends meet and this gives them the opportunity to have a family meal out together and they may give a $5 donation. It's all quite encouraging."

Mr Wilcox said the Krishna faith put much emphasis on healthy food and Food For Life is its welfare arm. He set up New Zealand's first Food For Life Centre in Auckland 20 years ago and said the Water St centre would welcome some more tables and chairs while donations of vegetables and dairy were always needed.