Kaikohe store Te Ara Hou aims to save the planet and change lives

Te Ara Hou owners Annie and Kerry Hilton (right) with staff member Zara Karena (left) and trustee Linda Bracken in the new Kaikohe store. Photo / Peter de Graaf

A new venture in Kaikohe aims to provide locals with affordable furniture and other goods while making sure useful items don't end up in the dump.

Te Ara Hou ("the new pathway") opened in the former Hammer Hardware premises on Broadway on May 9 with a huge range of home and office furniture, appliances, stationery, office supplies, reconditioned computers, home decor and crockery, as well as a smattering of books and clothing.

The store is owned by Kerry and Annie Hilton who moved to Kaikohe last year.

Kerry Hilton said the ''shop for good'' was a partnership with Auckland-based charity All Heart New Zealand, which had three stores in Albany, Manukau and Wellington.

All Heart worked with big companies to repurpose their unwanted items and had so far diverted more than 3000 tonnes from landfill.

Te Ara Hou also worked with another business to source surplus and second-hand home furniture.

As well as saving perfectly good furniture from the dump, the store aimed to provide goods to local people at prices they could afford.

Eventually the couple hoped to provide training and employment by hiring people to repair broken furniture and repurpose unwanted goods.

''It's not just diverting stuff from landfill. It's also redirecting, repurposing and reusing,'' he said.

''Don't get fooled into thinking we're a furniture store. We trade in hope. What we want is to change lives, including our own.''

The couple hoped to take delivery of two containers of goods a fortnight and never knew what they were going to get.

They also stocked top-end office furniture people would otherwise have to travel to Whangārei or Auckland for.

Kerry Hilton said they'd been ''blown away'' by the way they had been received by the Kaikohe community, with people they'd never met walking in off the street to help while they were renovating the building.

''They've given us so much and encouragement, even though we feel like we haven't earned it yet.''

While Te Ara Hou was faith-based it wasn't aligned with a particular church.

''Our aim is to be good to the world — that's why we divert stuff from landfill — and to each other.''

The Hiltons spent the previous 20 years in Kolkata (previously Calcutta) in India, where they started a business to give trafficked women a way out of the sex industry.

They trained more than 300 girls and women to sew bags and T-shirts for export.

When they returned to New Zealand they ''gravitated north'', he said.

Long-term they hoped to work with Waste Management and the Far North District Council to divert and re-use local waste.

Te Ara Hou is open 10am-5pm weekdays and, as an initial trial, 10am-1pm Saturdays.