What gives you hope?

Margaret | Whāingaroa

Through Margaret’s efforts to feed the kids at her local kura, she shows how empathy, aroha and community support can inspire positive change.

“My mum and dad have always taught us: if you’ve got enough for you, share.

So I’m just doing what I was brought up doing with my parents and also my birth parents, same thing. If you’ve got enough for you, share. And that’s all I’m doing. Trying to share the love and feed our kids because they’re hungry.

I was in a cooking class up at our kura, Raglan Area School, helping to teach kids how to make fried bread. There were two classes in the class, one was the year 13 class, and they were doing their NCEA levels, and the kids I was teaching were year 9. One of the kids I was teaching could smell their kai cooking and she says, “Oh, I’m so hungry.” I said, “Oh, won’t be long, playtime soon, you’ll be able to get some kai out of your bag.” She said, “I don’t have any kai. Our cupboards are empty, and my nan doesn’t get paid till tonight.”

So that didn’t sit right with me. I couldn’t sleep that night. The next day I went to the school and spoke to the deputy principal and I told her, and I cried, and I said, “We’ve got kids in our school who’ve got no kai.” I said, “We need to do something.” And that’s where it started. So three days a week I was up there cooking sausage sizzles, and then I’d go to the bakery and ask them for their day-old bread and get it cheap and make toasted sandwiches, and it just grew from there.

This year is my 10th year feeding our kids, and it’s not a government-funded thing because we don’t fit the criteria. So it’s from the love of our community and our businesses that awhi me to feed our kids. When I first started, so many of the teachers came up to me and said, “Whaea, do you know how much difference you’ve made in the classroom for us? Because the kids have been fed.” They all say to me the turnaround from when there wasn’t any kai for the kids to then having kai, there’s a big difference. So the kids are actually learning in class because they’re not hungry.”