Receive food
Who can become a recipient?
We partner with a range of organisations throughout New Zealand that provide support to vulnerable people in our communities. Our food recipients include food banks, marae, churches, kura and schools, kõhanga reo and kindergartens, youth groups, elderly services and rangatahi support, as well as other food hubs who provide similar services to KiwiHarvest. Please note we do not supply food parcels to individual people or whanau.
We are only able to service a certain level of demand, determined by the donations we receive. While we are always working hard to grow our donor base, regrettably, we cannot take on every organisation that wishes to become a recipient – this is to ensure we have enough food to adequately service demand from our existing partners.
If you are an organisation looking to become a recipient of our Auckland branch, we are currently at maximum capacity and our waiting list is closed. We will update our website when our waiting list is open again.
Your responsibility
As a food recipient you will be required to meet a number of strict food safety criteria, as well as a number of other standards. Prior to submitting your application to become a food recipient, a member of the KiwiHarvest team will explain these rules and requirements, as well as our registration process.
Recipient Stories
COMMUNITY BUILDERS NZ TRUST
Community Builders NZ Trust joined the KiwiHarvest family as recipients in 2020. They have a tremendous impact helping individuals (particularly in the communities of South Auckland, Far North and the Waikato Region) become active residents who realise their own potential to make positive change in their own communities despite the challenges they face personally. KiwiHarvest makes routine deliveries to one of their initiatives in South Auckland, Otara Kai Village.
Mangakino Foodbank
One of our goals is to regularly serve communities beyond the immediate areas of our branches. In 2020, our Auckland branch commenced support to the Taupo, Turangi and Mangakino regions to address rising demand.
The Mangakino Family Services was originally established to provide budgeting services. As an impact of COVID-19 and rising food demand, they established a foodbank, the Mangakino Foodbank and we onboarded them as a new receipt agency. Now their foodbank and companionship services take up the majority of their efforts, as people find themselves in need of food and fellowship.
Mangakino Family Services’ Joanna Hepi, shared with us that loneliness and isolation is a growing concern and she often takes the time to just have a cup of tea with someone to ease their anxiety. They have also started a community mara (garden), maintained by two of their volunteers.
GENESIS YOUTH TRUST
We are proud to have onboarded all 4 sites of Genesis Youth Trust including Glen Innes, Papakura, Māngere and Manurewa. The Genesis Youth Trust are dedicated to reducing the levels of youth-offending in Aotearoa’s most affected communities. They aim to inspire youth offenders to become constructive participants in New Zealand’s future instead of being trapped in the justice system.
They work through a holistic approach combining youth work, social work, mentoring, counselling and family services to achieve lasting positive change. Partnering with the NZ Police and other key agencies to aid their programme, Genesis Youth Trust are transforming lives and we are fortunate to be able to provide some food support to their programme.
Richard Lewis from the Papakura site said that partnering with KiwiHarvest helps the organisation to meet some of the challenging needs of families.
“KiwiHarvest’s support has helped to alleviate some of the struggles that many of our families were experiencing and to a certain extent, ease the poverty conditions being experience by many of our families. The food we receive from KiwiHarvest has helped immensely to fill the gaps for a lot of these families.”
Whangaparaoa Baptist Church
Established over 60 years ago, Whangaparaoa Baptist Church’s core mission is to be a vibrant church community, empowering people to positively impact their world.
They have a food bank run by a team of 8 volunteers that gathers every Friday to pack food parcels for families in their community. Each food parcel is tailored to the needs of the recipient and their families. The team distribute up to 50 parcels per week, an increase from 15-20 parcels pre COVID-19. Food insecurity is being felt across the country and it’s impressive to see frontline agencies adapting to the rising demand with all their energy.
Whangaparaoa Baptist Church also offer a wrap-around service with family counsellors to assist people who need further guidance and assistance in other areas of their lives. During COVID-19 they experienced recipients who lost their jobs and had to receive food support for the first time.
To register as a food recipient
Call 0800 601 609