AUCKLAND CITY MISSION MEDIA RELEASE

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City Mission and Papakura Marae celebrate first year of food bank partnership

For the past year the Papakura Marae, through its partnership with the Auckland City Mission, has been able to provide Papakura families in desperate need with nutritionally balanced food parcels. The Mission has also supported the marae with equipment, expertise and social work support.

The partnership is part of the Mission’s new approach to providing emergency food assistance which was a direct result of the findings of the Mission’s Family 100 research project, which looked into the factors trapping families in a cycle of poverty.

“Feedback from the families involved in the research revealed how time-consuming, complex and costly they found the process to access support from the maze of health and social service providers. This prompted us to reflect on how we could improve the situation,” explains City Missioner, Diane Robertson.

She continues, “We came up with the idea of ‘satellite food banks’ which meant instead of operating a standalone food bank we partnered with an existing community organisation to provide emergency food assistance for families in desperate need. Papakura Marae has been a good fit as a partner because they offer similar health and social services to the Mission and work with similar people.”

Partnering with other organisations also has the benefit of establishing a centralised database of clients which will assist to eliminate duplication of services and gain a more accurate gauge of food bank demand in Auckland, something that has not been available previously and is crucial to understanding the extent of food inequality throughout the city.

It is viewed that the partnership with strengthen in the coming 12 months.

ENDS

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