The Big Clean-Up (www.bigcleanup.org.nz)

​​Kia ora and thanks for your commitment to get Wellington back on its feet! More than 5,500 people like you have signed up to roll up their sleeves, and we've received donations from around the country.

As you may have heard, the hardworking folks from Wellington City Council have done a great job of cleaning up Parliament Grounds. Unfortunately, due to the presence of human waste and other hazardous materials, this job had to be done by heavy machinery and professionals.

But our original mission - showing our solidarity with each other and restoring our community - remains unchanged.

More than 200 volunteer drivers have been assigned to help community organisations across the Wellington region deliver food and essentials to people in self-isolation due to Covid.

We know that feeling isolated and abandoned is one of the pathways that lead people down conspiracy theory rabbit holes. Reaching out to people who need it, making them feel connected and supported, that's one thing we can do to build community resilience, and to protect our people against those who want to divide us.

The Omicron spike has created huge needs for these services, and these organisations are stretched thin. So we want to use your donations to help them continue to feed and care for our community.

We've also been working with the Māori Wardens, who have been at the frontlines protecting communities. The need high quality communications equipment to help them operate in environments like those we saw during the protest. We want to use your donations to help them buy this equipment. We are also currently looking for a commercial sponsor to go halves with, in order to make these donations go a little further.

We also intend to give a koha to mana whenua (Taranaki Whanui) to recognise their leadership in cleansing the whenua and moana.

I understand that this is not the "clean-up" we had envisioned in the beginning, but I hope you'll agree that it's serving the same goal - to heal and strengthen our community, against those who want us to be divided, fearful and angry.

If you would prefer your donation to be refunded, please contact Givealittle directly at helpdesk@givealittle.co.nz by 5pm 23rd March 2022.

me directly and I'll sort it out for you.

Thank you for your support so far - we hope you'll stay with us the rest of the way!

* The organisations we are working with are: DCM, Te Awa Kairangi Kai Collective, Ekta NZ, Student Volunteer Army, Porirua Volunteer Army, Dyer Street School