You may have noticed something new sitting outside the gate at Martinborough Kindergarten recently. This is our Pataka Kai which is a community food pantry.
Over the last few years, our Kindergarten has been on a journey towards using more sustainable practices and part of this journey included us joining Enviro Schools. During one of our enviro school hub meetings we noticed a Paataka Kai at another Kindergarten and this inspired us to make our own. We thought this would be a great place to share produce from our garden with our whaanau and provide a place where they could also share kai from their gardens.
This provides the opportunity to share, showmanaakitanga to each other and also reduce food wastage.
Food is expensive, so it would be so good if we could help each other out by sharing what we can. The paataka kai is also the perfect place to share our paper bricks which are made by our tamariki. They are made from recycled paper and are great for starting wood fires
After coming up with a design we enlisted the help of local builder, Malcolm Blown, who used recycled wood and materials kindly donated by Martinborough Mitre10, who have helped us out many times over the years. Initially the idea was that it would sit inside the Kindergarten grounds, but after a team discussion we decided it would be great if the community could access it also. We have a lot of foot traffic that goes past our gate so we thought the location would be perfect. Since it’s placement, we’ve had lots of positive comments from the community which is heartening to hear. We’ve even had whaanau come past to check if we had carrots so they could take it home to their Mum to cook for their tea. Sorry we didn’t have carrots this time, but keep checking and maybe next time there will be!
Our next step is to add some wooden signage which is being designed and made for us by Martin who runs TOYMAKER workshops at our Kindergarten.
The Paataka Kai is for everyone and anyone and is ready for use so please, if you have any excess produce you wish to share, come and use our paataka kai and if you need anything, please don’t be shy, come and help yourself. We want the food to be used and not go to waste, it’s there for everyone.
We’d like to take this opportunity to thank M.J Blown Builders Ltd, Martinborough Mitre10 and Martin from TOYMAKER for helping to make our vision possible.
Please spread the word!
