Mint team volunteers to help out with Auckland flood relief efforts

The Mint Team have been busy lending a helping hand to charity organizations recruiting for extra volunteers to help with flood relief efforts. On Friday 27th Tāmaki Makaurau was hit by an unprecedented amount of rain fall in the space of a few hours causing flash floods, affecting people’s lives, homes, and access and transport around the city.

Thankfully our staff were minimally affected by the severe weather and we wanted to do our part to help out the communities and those in need of support.

On Friday 3rd of February, some of our team went to help at Kiwi Harvest with their food donation parcels. The volunteer group they were a part of managed to get through an amazing 7,200kgs of sorting, packing and repalletising of product. This equates to 20,571 meals being distributed out to the public.

On Wednesday 8th  of February more of our team went to Auckland City Mission, where they helped with inventory, sorting and repalletizing food for parcels. Unfortunately, one of the distribution centres was affected by the floods, and is closed, so all operations are out of one warehouse.

The Mission was kind enough to talk the team through their future initiatives, where they are trialling ways to make food access more sustainable in the community. One idea they have developed is special cylinder planters in their Mara Kai, which translates to Food Garden, and they are looking into options to make these available for families to grow their own produce, as well as cooking classes.

Speaking to the Volunteer Services Manager, the wonderful Mahara, she thanked us thoroughly for our help. Coming from a corporate background herself she is very grateful to businesses that allow their staff to volunteer. Not only do they appreciate the helping hands, but also the different perspectives people can bring to the organisation to help drive their efforts and operations forwards.  If you’re interested in volunteering visit their website Auckland City Mission and Kiwi Harvest.