The Daily whakapapa - our Story timeline
In late 2014 we, a group of Te Puke locals, formed The Search Party Charitable Trust, with a vision to see a connected and thriving Te Puke community.
With the support of funders and our community we built a café, in a form of social enterprise. This space was soon used as a place for community to gather, especially for our free monthly pizza nights, and our volunteer-based community cooking sessions of ready-made cottage pies for our community. Many discussions happening there ended in beautiful collaborations for the town.
The Daily cafe funders and trustees at the time, from left, Marty and Chrissi Robinson, Andrew Reid and Richard Crawford
We received referrals from community members, community organisations, government departments and health providers to gather volunteers to practically help their neighbours who needed support with their sections and disposing of rubbish. This often-reconnected people with their community and in some cases, this helped people retain their tenancies. Our collaborative work continued as we supported the formation of COLAB Te Puke.
The Daily became a supplier for the government Ka Ora, Ka Ako Lunches in School Programme. We formed a beautiful partnership with the local schools and we were able to provide extra free lunches to four local unfunded schools. This kitchen became a platform to a more sustainable way of continuing our ready-made food support. We are also able to direct any overflow of food back to our community. That year we also changed our name to The Daily Charitable Trust.
Our response to the ongoing hardship of the COVID epidemic throughout 2021 and 2022 saw continued value placed on partnership relationships and collaboration. We were able to adapt and respond quickly to an increased need for emergency ready-made meals, keeping our local iwi providers, health organisations and food bank well stocked with ready-made meals. In March/April 2022 we generated 4,000+ readymade frozen meals.