Fishing from the other side of the boat

The Friday Food Share, an initiative of the Waikanae Anglican Foodbank providing a new model in response to food poverty, recently won the Health and Wellbeing award for Kāpiti in the Wellington Airport Regional Community Awards. We took the opportunity to talk to Pippa about journey that bought her to this point.

The Food Share team

Hi, I’m Pippa and this is part of my life story and the story of Friday Food Share.

I was born into a Salvation Army/Baptist family and grew up in a beautiful extended family and church community at Dunedin South Salvation Army. I believe this formed my early understanding of the joy and value of serving and giving generously and caring for all people but especially the broken and forgotten people in our communities. It was a special place to grow up. But life changes you sometimes and as time passes, we can forget where we came from. I slowly got busy, a bit blind and selfish and, well, just human.

About 10 years ago I found myself at a Parachute music festival and God got my attention in a new way. From the first event on the first day I was completely undone. It was a panel discussion called something like “Do you have a heart for the poor?” Within minutes I was aware that I certainly did not. I began to weep. I sat in my seat and cried through the whole session. It was raw and real and painful as I repented and thanked God for meeting me there. The rest of the long weekend I continued to cry as God did His beautiful work in my spirit. The Parachute Band played a song called ‘Saviour of the Broken Heart’ several times from their album ‘Love Without Measure’ that became something of an anthem for my life since then. Based on Isaiah 58 (The Message translation) the lyrics say, “break our hearts to see the need in this world.” I was no longer blind; I could see, and it broke my heart... in the best way... I would actually never ever be the same again.

And so I came back and tried to make a difference. I was full of ideas and wanted to make them happen. For a while it didn't seem possible, there didn't seem to be space for me or my endless ideas. Eventually I started a project called ‘The Clothing Bank’. I collected and sorted enormous amounts of donated children’s clothing and hosted events to give them away. The need was real as even charity shops were too expensive for some people to shop at and to add to that, it was a positive step to be more sustainable by using second hand instead of buying new. I learned a lot and the clothes made a difference, but I felt quite alone in my mission and was discouraged. I tucked my other ideas away and waited.

I was grateful to be invited by Rev Tim Bustin to join the St Luke's huddle in 2016 and attend the 3DM learning community events over the next few years. I experienced personal growth, met great people and connected deeply with our team. During these years my family and I were suffering through the worst personal grief and distress we had ever known. It was terrible, painful and almost unbearable. A wise person encouraged me to “never let a good crisis go to waste” and so I persevered and pressed on. The huddle group were a vital support and I felt helped and held up by their prayers and friendship.

One area of learning and insight during this time was the five-fold ministry gifts survey (based on Ephesians 4:11). I had filled in similar surveys a few times before, but this was the first time in my life I had considered the word apostle with a lower case ‘a’. It had been rarely spoken of in my Christian experience.

Mike Breen, in his book Building a Discipling Culture explains what it means to be an apostle. “Apostle comes from the Greek apostolos meaning “one who is sent out.” Apostles are visionary and pioneering, always pushing into new territory. They like to establish new churches, ministries, non-profits, Kingdom-minded businesses or initiatives. They come up with innovative ways to do kingdom work.”

It was like seeing part of my life flash before my eyes and part of me made sense now... almost like discovering your family heritage for the first time... you feel like you belong. I had always had a yearning to be involved new things. I enjoyed change and, where most people avoided it, I relished it. I also lived with an idea factory in my head for new ideas and projects. I now understood these were traits of an apostle, it was part of how God made me, and I felt whole.

I started to dream again of what could happen, I prayed and planned and bravely started to hope. When I shared my project ideas with our new vicar, Rev Mark Harris, he was interested and welcoming, he wanted to make space for new things.

When the current foodbank manager Ralph Pyatt retired in November 2020 (after serving the foodbank for 22 years!), I was excited and amazed that I would finally have an opportunity to see my ideas come to life. It was very humbling to be given this very special work to do. Just yesterday I shared with someone that this process of growing from idea to reality is a wonderful journey of challenge, invitation and joy.

In March 2021 I was ready to make the switch from providing standard food parcels to starting the Friday Food Share. After weeks of research and discussion with others at St Luke’s, and my friends and family we had a plan that we hoped would work. It was amazing to begin our partnership with Kaibosh Food Rescue and set up our space that first week. I now like to describe this model as “fishing from the other side of the boat” when it comes to giving food to people in need.

Our model is similar to a social supermarket, but without a points system. We set out all the food that has been donated or bought with donated funds and people pack their own bags as they move around the church hall. It’s called the Food Share because everyone gets to take home a share of the food. Anyone can come and shop. All we ask for is a first name and how many people they are feeding. We wanted to eliminate as many of the barriers to accessing food as possible. Many other foodbanks have limits on how many parcels you can have in a year or require you to provide more information than some people feel comfortable giving. We want to be a place where people can come back every week for a share of the food and not feel embarrassed or stigmatised by it.

We also aim to offer morning tea or lunch each week. We find a number of people coming to the Food Share are also looking for connection sharing a meal is a great way to do this. Seeing this need has resulted in more ideas for project we plan to launch next year (that’s the apostle in me!).

It's been 18 months since we started and we are supplying around 50 parcels per week, representing approximately 150 individuals. Both heart-breaking and amazing at the same time. We’ve also had someone take the food share model that we’ve created to their local church and are now feeding 10 families a week. That person had been coming to us for food and was inspired to help their local community in the same way. It’s very humbling.

We love the beautiful brave ones who come for food and the community life we are sharing together. It’s also very exciting thinking of the new ways we can serve the last, the lost and the least in our community in the coming years. “I take up the cost to carry the lost” (from the song ‘Saviour of the broken Heart).

If you want to get in touch and find out more about how the Food Share operates, contact Pippa at foodbank@anglican.co.nz or 022 564 2981.

Pippa and Pip at the Wellington Airport Community Awards for Kāpiti

A typical Friday morning at the Food Share.

The youth group set up the tables at the end of their meeting each Thursday night

The tamariki love helping out too