Flood of community support helps keep foodbank open until end of year

A south Auckland foodbank left with boxes of ruined meat will be able to stay open until the end of the year thanks to a flood of community support.

Earlier this week David Letele, who runs the Buttabean Motivation Foodbank, revealed that about eight tonnes of sausages and mince were unusable after someone deliberately turned off the freezer where they were stored and smashed up a forklift.

A frustrated Letele, who has been battling to get funding for the service, took to social media saying he was out and could not take anymore.

Letele told Checkpoint he believed the incident was intentional.

"My heart just sank. I just couldn't believe it," he said.

"They'd just pulled the power out and smashed up the forklift and made a mess where it was kept. We had it at a church, we were trying to think it would be safer there than actually outside of our foodbank."

He said he was waiting for the security footage, however, there were a couple of days where the cameras were not working.

"I did that video literally after I found out and I just said, 'I'm done'. I felt like that was it. I left work, I sent a video to our team and just said 'that's it, just wrap everything up. I'm finished'."

"When I was driving home, I was contemplating everything because it's just so hard and you're trying to hustle. It's not just the foodbank side, it's everything that we do. It's very hard and it just was the final straw that was just going to break me."

Community support has filled his cup and given him some faith again, he said.

"I think the Givealittle is over $110,000 and when you're reading through the messages, one guy donated his last dollar fifty that he had in his account.

"When you're in the community and you're working, you're hustling away, you sort of don't understand the impact that it has and what it means for the community.

"But when we're getting these messages and getting the phone calls and the people coming up to me in the street, it's been an amazing feeling, that's for sure."

The money raised will reopen and keep the food share going until Christmas, he said.

"We'll be able to have one last big Christmas, up here in south Auckland, we also look after West Auckland, some schools and also down in Te Kūiti.

"Then we wind down, it'll just be in the background not large and open to the public."

BBM foodbank will have to wrap up most of its services at the end of the year because it could not find a funder to keep it going, he said.

"We just can't do it. We're at the risk of losing everything. I'm not able to sleep. I'm going to sleep thinking about money and forecasting how long until we get funding?

"You're out there with your cup in hand, literally begging."

The foodbank currently feeds 100 to 200 families on a weekly basis.

"The demands there, but we just can't do it. This is not even whether it's a left or right government. All governments need to stand up here and they either do it properly or they look after the groups that are doing it because it just can't be left up to groups like us," he said.

He said support from Z Energy allowed the organisation to keep its gyms open.

"We've got three gyms that are all free where we've got all of our classrooms, Mums and Bubs, all the health programmes, Z Energy are a big part of that. We're very blessed to have their support on that side of the business.

"But no one's come forward yet in terms of the food share."

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