Dave Letele’s urgent advice for the charities changing NZ lives.
Dave Letele’s work stories should come with a warning: readers are advised they may find this article distressing. To that though, the founder of the BBM foodbank and motivational charity would probably say: “tough”.
This is the way life is for many New Zealanders today.
Letele, a community ambassador for Z Energy (Z), shares a story that moved him recently. “There’s a grandmother in Manukau trying to keep her grandkids together. The mum’s going through addiction, the father’s in prison. She begged me for help – not asked, begged.
“So I went there, and she felt she had to prove to me just how poor she was. She opened up her fridge. It had half a dog roll and a packet of chuck steak and the cupboard had an empty box of Weet-Bix and a bottle of cooking oil.
What’s she going to do if it’s not for groups like us? If not for all these community groups that are on the ground, helping everyone that needs a hand?
“When I started working there, it was hard in our community and it’s just got so much harder. There’s more demand and less support.
“I keep thinking, what would be the cost if groups like BBM can no longer continue? What would be the cost to New Zealand?”
Another true story. “A lady messaged me saying, there’s a young family getting searched by the police outside her house. They searched the kids’ schoolbags and all they pulled out was food.
“That’s where things are at. If we want to improve our society, we’ve got to support the groups that are on the ground to have an impact and watch what can be achieved.”
It’s why Letele is passionate about encouraging groups to apply for help from Z’s Good in the Hood. The company’s flagship community programme that has been running for over a decade and in recent years, has distributed $1 million annually to more than 500 groups across the motu, ranging from food security and youth development to safety and wellbeing.
Applications for Good in the Hood 2025 are open from June 3-29. To apply, groups simply need to fill out an online form saying who they are, what they do and how they support the community around their local Z.
Z stresses the groups don’t need to be a registered charity – the programme backs all kinds of non-profit, purpose-led mahi.
Each participating Z station gives away $5000, split between four different groups in their community, chosen by that local Z team. Customers vote for the groups in-store from August 26 – September 21, and the money is then divided according to the votes for each group.
The programme aims to increase support for Māori- and iwi-led organisations too, as internal reviews highlighted they are under-represented in funding statistics. In 2023, Z began working with Letele to improve outreach and access to those groups.
As part of its commitment to funding equity across all Z’s social investment, the company also runs the Regional Boost initiative, with an emphasis on supporting Māori and using the index of deprivation to guide additional funding to communities with the greatest need.
Letele knows the power of Good in the Hood from the grassroots all too well after he originally applied for funding for his foodbank. A few years on, Z supports the running costs, fuel and leases for his South Auckland-based BBM programmes covering food security, motivational courses, fitness and wellness initiatives, and for him to become Z’s Community Ambassador.
“If you just take our food bank, which we’ve had to scale down a little bit, we’re helping 100 families every single week, and an average family is between five and 10 people. And then you’ve got our gyms where we run three to five classes per day, which are all free. Our health programmes do anything from getting people off the couch to helping people with multiple long-term health conditions.
“A JB Were economic impact report showed that $13 is returned for every $1 invested, which is a massive return. We’re impacting literally thousands of people every week.”
But, Letele says, “We know there are many other organisations out there in the community, and perhaps they don’t know where to go or who to talk to, to get some help for their work.
“We have a really good profile and it’s still hard for us to get funding. Imagine what it’s like for groups that are doing just as much work but don’t have the public profile we have.
“That’s the benefit of Good in the Hood. Not only can those groups receive donations, but it gets the word out about the work they’re doing. They’re engaging with the public who are coming into the service stations. A lot of the time, people wouldn’t have heard of many of these groups, so it’s a great way for them to be able to get their name out there, and for people to learn about what they do, as well as the funds they receive. It’s something for everyone to build on.”
Applications for Good in the Hood 2025 are open now – if your group is making a difference, this is your chance to keep the mahi going.