Kaitautoko Kaiārahi
Support and lead at the same time. We walk alongside the communities we serve rather than directing from above.
About Us
The Vector Group Charitable Trust sets itself apart in Te Puke by building community resilience through a powerful combination of youth empowerment, collaborative programs, and a unique focus on kai (food) resilience.
Pre-2000 roots · CC45966 · Te Puke since 2011
Proudly collaborating for our community
Vector Group Charitable Trust builds resilience in Te Puke through youth empowerment, collaborative programmes, and kai resilience across the Bay of Plenty.
Creatives
Creativity is at the heart of everything we do. We love doing different, and we love doing it well.
Creativity is at the heart of everything we do. We love doing different, and we love doing it well.
Youth
From inception we have been taiohi-led and engaged. Young people shape our work — they do not only receive it.
From inception we have been taiohi-led and engaged. Young people shape our work — they do not only receive it.
Community
Engagement is our strength. We collaborate with others across Te Puke and the wider Bay of Plenty every day.
Engagement is our strength. We collaborate with others across Te Puke and the wider Bay of Plenty every day.
Who we are
Meet the trustees, founders, and people who built Vector Group — and those we honour in memoriam.
What drives us
Envisioning Sustainable Communities Creatively
We started by asking a simple question: why do the youth of Te Puke feel disconnected?
The answer was belonging — not belonging defined by age, ethnicity, or background, but the human need to feel connected, valued, and part of something larger than yourself.
That insight became the foundation for everything we do. Our kai kaupapa reaches back before 2000, through Daisy’s Inc, Godfuel, and Vector Group Holdings. Since 2011 we have built environments where young people, whānau, and communities can participate, contribute, grow, and belong. Explore our work and our projects.
Why Vector?
The name Vector comes from an unlikely source — the character Vector in Despicable Me:
“Vector: committing crimes with both direction AND magnitude.”
Founder Stephen Fawcett looked up the word. A vector has direction and magnitude — exactly what community work needs: clear purpose and real impact.
That idea still drives the trust today — including through OSVector.ai, digital infrastructure giving direction and magnitude to organisational memory and community knowledge.
Our kaupapa
Mō te oranga o ngā taiohi me ngā kaitiaki e mahi ana mō rātou.
For the wellbeing of taiohi and the people who support them.
Supporting young people means supporting everyone around them — whānau, mentors, educators, and community members who show up for youth every day.
Inclusive
Embracing diversity. Age, ethnicity, background, and experience are strengths in our community.
Responsive
Evolving with need. Community priorities change — we adapt with them.
Vision and mission
Vision
A community where diversity is celebrated, and every person feels included.
Mission
To create opportunities for healthy connections and self-expression; to support people who work with young people; and to strengthen youth engagement, development, and creativity so young people thrive.
Strategic programmes
We deliver five registered strategic programmes — with kai resilience as a cross-programme focus across our growing and food work.
- Youth Development and Engagement
- Community Activities and Engagement
- Information Sharing
- Supporting Shared-Identity Communities
- Creative Projects that Enable Self-Expression
Community cohesion
We all share a need to belong — to feel connected, valued, and part of something larger than ourselves. In Te Puke and the Bay of Plenty, community shows up in three connected ways:
- Geographic communities — neighbourhoods and towns, from Te Puke to Maketū, building local identity and civic pride
- Social communities — clubs, grower networks, schools, cultural and faith groups, united by shared interests and relationships
- Virtual communities — online connection across distance; part of how we share information and stay linked through Te Puke Digital and Te Puke Today on Kiwifruit Capital
Our philosophy
Our approach is grounded in a Girardian philosophical foundation — non-violent, restorative, and relational. In practice: guidance before judgment, restoration over punishment, belonging before behaviour, and reconciliatory principles in how we work with youth and community.
Our story
Our lineage runs deeper than Vector Group’s 2011 registration. From about 2000, Daisy’s Inc (also styled DAISYS / Daisy’s) hosted women’s retreats and related community gathering work. That thread continued through GodFuel Media Ministries — registered as a charity on 30 June 2008 (CC38502; NZBN 9429043114290), with trading names including Daisy’s / Daisy’s Inc — before Vector Group was established as the continuing umbrella.
Vector Group Charitable Trust (CC45966) was registered in January 2011, with founding deed 20 September 2011, beginning in Papamoa and growing strongly in Te Puke, where we established and operated the Te Puke Youth and Community Centre.
In the years around that founding — about 2007 to 2011 — founder Stephen Fawcett and Pauline Jacobs worked alongside each other supporting young people connected with HTK youth. Pauline served as a founding trustee with Stephen. We honour that early partnership and shared youth work as part of our public story — practical belonging, not a single-site brand.
Before COVID-19 — and as community needs kept shifting — we were already evolving from a single-site model into a connected ecosystem — Troppo, Grow Te Puke, Crop Swap Te Puke, Te Puke Digital, local news through Te Puke Today, and ongoing youth and community development.
The building closed. The kaupapa didn’t.
Registered charity
| Legal name | Vector Group Charitable Trust (Envisioning Sustainable Communities Creatively) |
|---|---|
| Registration | CC45966 (Charities Services · 4 January 2011) |
| NZBN | 9429045972324 |
| Incorporation | 2663031 · Charitable Trusts Act · 21 February 2017 (name form 30 June 2017) |
| GST | 106-276-961 (registered 31 July 2018) · donee · income tax & RWT exemptions |
| Bank | Westpac 03-1330-0031832-00 |
| Registered | 4 January 2011 |
| Base | Te Puke, Bay of Plenty |
| Operations | Nationwide (Aotearoa New Zealand) |
| [email protected] | |
| Phone | 0274 144 280 |
Trading / other names
Full list of trading and other names used by the Trust. The Charities Register summary PDF truncates long trading-name fields — this page is the complete public list (aligned with the Version 4 deed Schedule B).
Kai Resilience Network New Zealand, Bay of Plenty Kai Resilience Network, Bay of Plenty Volunteer Network, Kai Resilience New Zealand, New Zealand Kai Resilience, Aotearoa Kai Resilience, Resilience New Zealand, Kai Resilience Network, Kai Resilience, Kai Resilience Co-operative, Food Resilience School NZ, Food Resilience New Zealand, Te Puke Youth and Community Centre, Troppo, Grow Te Puke, Te Puke Crop Swap, Food Forests New Zealand, Te Puke Online, Te Puke Directory, Te Puke Digital, OSVector, RegenOS, Kiwifruit Capital, Search Foundry, RootyToot, Nursery Map NZ, Edible Landscapes.
Supported by
Lotteries Communities · COGS · Ballance Te Puke — and community partners who make this work possible.
Connect with us
Projects, programmes, partnerships, or a conversation about Te Puke — we would love to hear from you.
Vector Group Charitable Trust · Envisioning Sustainable Communities Creatively · Facebook