How have a team of businesses and community organisations done to meet food scarcity in Hamilton?

Food is a Basic Human Right

The Wise Group, Hamilton City Council and Montana Food and Events partnered to support community groups who were struggling to keep up with demand for food during the lockdown.

Montana is providing the food at cost, for no profit, and Council is providing the facilities and support staff free of charge. The support is being led by Wise Group which is co-ordinating a wider effort to provide hardship and social service support to locals during COVID-19. Food costs were initially met by the Council and are now being picked up by Civil Defence to provide welfare support for the local community. There is no charge to those receiving them.

Here is a snap-shot of what has been distributed to-date:

What have they done?

• 189,695 total units of care have been delivered to the Hamilton community (this has been calculated on the total individual meals provided from both food parcels and frozen meals);
• 41,651 individuals served in Hamilton;
• 30,263 meals distributed to Hamilton providers;
• 4,060 food parcels distributed to Hamilton providers;
• 1042 daily average for frozen meals;
• 168 daily average for food parcels; and
• 4050 meals distributed to rural providers outside of Hamilton (this is not calculated in the totals above)

"At our community hub we would see an average of 30 people per day pre-COVID. Pre-COVID. We are now seeing the demand grow . Yesterday we delivered to 791 families at 170 houses. We are seeing an increase in people who have never accessed our support before."
- Te Whare Kokonga – Melville Community House

"We have seen an increase in need. Pre-COVID we delivered to around 60 individuals a day. We are now seeing almost 600. Some Families are dropping off but just as quickly people are coming on. We are seeing an increase in large families and kaumatua”.
 - The Serve, meal charity