Kiri plans a big clean-up for Rugby World Cup

Rotorua's Kiri Danielle Hunt is on a mission and she needs your help to succeed.

Ms Hunt wants New Zealand to be a part of her campaign to clean up the country before the Rugby World Cup begins in September next year, and is kicking off her "Clean up for the Cup" campaign at the Rotorua Lakefront tomorrow.

"I think we all want our country to be beautiful for all of our visitors, 100 per cent clean and green, just like everyone in the world thinks we are."

As an added incentive she said anyone who came to the Lakefront before the Santa Parade, between 10am and 11am tomorrow, would be in to win one of hundreds of dollars' worth of spot prizes donated by local businesses.

All people had to do was pick up some rubbish and put it in a bin. Ms Hunt and her team will be close by ready to "pounce" on those tidy Kiwis who put their rubbish in the right place.

"We need as many people down there as we can so we can show the organisers of the Rugby World Cup we really mean business," she said.

Ms Hunt and her Kaitiaki Kids from Tickles Childcare featured in The Daily Post last Saturday. Her team of pre-schoolers had adopted two mud pools on the Arikikapakapa golf course opposite the entrance to Te Puia, the Lakefront and Kuirau Park, as places where they could make a difference and keep clean.

Ms Hunt said she decided she would become the pools' unofficial kaitiaki (guardian) and remove rubbish from them.

"Then I started noticing how other areas of Rotorua's natural beauty were being ruined by rubbish. The Lakefront and Kuirau Park are examples," she said.

Now her idea has grown wings and she is taking it all the way to Wellington.

"After Saturday's launch in Rotorua we'll be heading off to Wellington by car, picking up rubbish and cleaning up the country on the way."

She said she would be stopping in places like Taupo, Turangi and Taihape on the way.

On Sunday afternoon she is meeting with Rugby World Cup officials to discuss her campaign to see if they want to take it any further.

"I want to show them we can do this. I have spoken to the Government's World Cup planners and they said they were very interested. They want to meet with me on Sunday in Wellington. "What I'd really like to see is the whole of New Zealand get behind it, get some celebrities involved and really make a difference, not only for our visitors but for ourselves.

"Let's show the world we really love our country and its natural wonders."