Quick Kai is growing!

We are super stoked to share some exciting news about our Quick Kai programme, here at Te Whare Hapori o ngā Puna Waiora / Newtown Community Centre.

Over the past 7 years, our Quick Kai team has been whipping up nourishing and delicious meals in the community centre kitchen. The team is made up of volunteers with intellectual disabilities who are learning food preparation skills and gain professional kitchen experience while giving back to their community.

Thanks to the New Zealand Lottery Grants Board and the Nikau Foundation, we have received the funding to increase the capacity of our Quick Kai team. This means that we have been able to turn our previous volunteer Quick Kai Kaiwhakahaere / Coordinator into a paid staff role, alongside a Kitchen Assistant role. We are so glad that all the hard work of our Quick Kai team can be acknowledged and rewarded this way.

With this increase in capacity, we will also be able to have the Quick Kai team in the kitchen making meals two days per week, instead of just one. This means every Wednesday and Thursday, you’ll find the team cooking up meals that you can grab hot on the day around 1pm or take home frozen any time after that.

With cost of living increasing, there is a noticeable need for accessible kai in our communities. Previously, we were making over thirty meals every week and they have been flying out the door. They are so in demand that the meals are usually in the freezer for barely a day or two before selling out.  We here at the community centre can see how crucial access to tasty, healthy kai is for so many people and these changes mean we will be able to provide approximately sixty to eighty meals every week.

We are also dedicated to making kai as accessible as possible. So, we are moving to a system of accepting optional donations for meals instead of the previous cost of $2. If someone can’t afford to donate, that’s no problem Quick Kai meals should be available to anyone and everyone who needs them.

Quick Kai is made possible with the help of our friends at Kaibosh and Kaicycle, who generously donatate veggies and food for our meals every week. And a big thank you to New World Newtown for fundraising for Quick Kai with their Wishing Well!

Ngā mihi nui ki o mātou Quick Kai hoamahi - to our new funding partners, supporters and to the wonderful Quick Kai team!