With the very humble beginnings of a small neighborhood street group, to a wooden pataka kai (food pantry) made from donated wood off-cuts & a donated second hand shipping container that was in storage in the city rusting away for the past 4 years to a village that now brings relief, fun and hope, run by locals for our locals and the wider the community.

It has been a complete blessing for our very small team supported by local volunteers to see the impact of a collective group of willing hearts to positively impact the community that they live, eat, play, pray and more through sheer will power and a just do it attitude. When we first started these projects it was out of a desire to find solutions to some of the issues we ourselves were experiencing alongside our own friends, family and neighbours. We wanted to bring a solution to those issues that would inspire others become change maker contributors too while having lots of fun along the way to uplift the spirit of others.

Today we now have a fully functioning Social store, cafe that supports new local start up businesses, a bike hub that rescues and redistributes bikes and helmets, an information kiosk point for those lost in the sea of information, a youth drop in hub, a community mara kai, we run the largest Otara neighbourhood program as well as Pataka Kai which is now nationwide and a whole lot of community events and initiatives on top of all of that throughout the year. We currently manage all of this with only 5 staff and without the support of an amazing volunteer network we really wouldn't be able to manage this at all. Our projects require at least 10 full time staff but because we have never had the funding to make that possible our current team haved carried more than 2, sometimes 3 roles each to help keep the waka paddling on course.

With the increased demands on our space due to Covid and also the impacts it has had on us to execute our Sustain 2000 plan that was suppose to be an in person event, we have had to completely change our plan in order to still make this happen as the ongoing support from these projects for our community for the next two years hangs in the balance.

If this village or any of our projects and events have made an impact on yourself or your family OR if you believe that the loss of this space would be detrimental to our community then we would love for you to consider helping us get to our goal by the end of the month either by donating OR participating in any of our challenges.

Our team really love coming to work everyday. They love serving our seniors, youth and wider community through the various projects we run. We would love to see this space carry on and we would really appreciate your support to get there. Your support will help us to keep our existing staff on for the next two years and it will also support us to increase our capacity by getting a few more full time staff on board including 2 new Youth workers for the Otara Youth Hub which is currently 100% volunteer run.

Nga mihi nui and thank you all so much for your words of affirmation and support. We appreciate you all.