Aroha in Action: Our Pātaka Kai is Open!

Vector Group Charitable Trust (CC45966, Te Puke) has led community kai, youth belonging, and food education in the Western Bay of Plenty on a kai kaupapa reaching back before 2000, with Te Puke delivery intensifying from 2011. Our kai resilience and pātaka kai story reaches back before 2000, carried on through Daisy’s Inc, Godfuel, and Vector Group Holdings. In 2011 — when Vector Group was established — that thread took a large shift in conversation with a visionary gardener in Pāpāmoa, Owen Mania Takuira-Ngaropo of The Rock Community Gardens. Our work did not start after COVID, and it did not start when regional plans were written.

This post records that lineage, what we built next, and where to get food help in Te Puke today. For the full personal story, see our Troppo article: Meeting Owen Takuira-Ngaropo and The Rock Pāpāmoa Community Gardens.

Lineage before 2011 — and the Pāpāmoa shift

Long before Te Puke connector work and pātaka kai on the ground today, the kaupapa was forming: pre-2000 roots, then Daisy’s Inc, Godfuel, and Vector Group Holdings. Vector Group was established in 2011 — the same year Stephen Fawcett met the late Owen Mania Takuira-Ngaropo, founder of The Rock Pāpāmoa Community Gardens. That meeting was the large shift: Owen’s vision was direct: a place where whānau could gather, learn, grow food, and share produce with those who needed it — sustainability, belonging, and resilience in one garden.

That meeting shaped everything that followed. Our first food-forest work included an early install in Samoa; locally, Owen’s example helped define how Vector Group thinks about kai as community infrastructure, not a side project.

A community hub, not “just a garden”

The Rock became a hub for personal growth, education, and connection — people from every background growing together, sharing skills and stories. In 2012, social media helped the movement scale: the original Hartford Road Community Gardens Facebook page connected volunteers and supporters. Today’s continuity lives on The Rock Pāpāmoa on Facebook.

From The Rock to Kai Resilience in Te Puke

Owen’s model — grow together, teach young people, feed families — flowed into Vector Group’s charity work across Te Puke and the wider rohe:

• Kai Resilience Education in alternative education settings — practical growing, self-reliance, and food security for rangatahi
• Te Puke firsts — among the first community fridges, pātaka kai, and kiwifruit bin distribution; food forests and 50,000+ plants gifted to community growers since 2011 (documented total — see our kai resilience record)
• 2017–2018 — Te Puke Youth and Community Centre (16 Oxford Street): youth-led programmes, home-school hosting, creative and digital pathways, and Level 2 computing via Toi Ohomai brought locally
• January 2017 — structured youth belonging survey in Te Puke, before later sector collaboratives formalised

COVID: when food networks mattered most

When COVID-19 hit, food security stopped being abstract. Networks built through years of community gardening and trust — including relationships forged through The Rock — helped Vector Group respond quickly with produce access and food support across Te Puke. We were among those at the front of local food response, not arriving after the crisis to claim the space.

After the Oxford Street centre closed in 2018, the building was gone but the kaupapa continued — shifting to a distributed ecosystem: Troppo tropical food forest, Grow Te Puke, Crop Swap Te Puke, https://nurserymap.troppo.nz, KaiResilience.food, and ongoing youth and community mahi.

Rest in love — Owen and our fallen heroes

Since 2021, Vector Group has mourned five people who shaped our mission — including Owen Takuira-Ngaropo. His garden legacy lives on in every food forest, education session, and pantry model we still advance. We also remember Trish Ives, Ed Pollard, John Stewart, Dahl Gurdit-Singh, and Juliet Lloyd.

Full kudos tributes: Kudos — appreciations and in memoriam · Read on Troppo: Owen Takuira-Ngaropo — Rest in love.

Today: Poutiri services we want every whānau to know

The image above is Poutiri’s Pātaka Kai. Vector Group fully supports replication of this model — communities helping each other, whānau taking care of whānau. More pātaka kai, more shelves, and more mutual care across Te Puke is exactly what we want to see.

After COVID, food support in the Western Bay grew through many organisations — including Poutiri Wellness Centre, which we back and share publicly when whānau need food access. That work sits alongside, not instead of, our own kai resilience programmes at Troppo, Grow Te Puke, and Crop Swap.

We continue to support Poutiri’s Pātaka Kai and the Te Puke Community Gardens shelf outside of our own kai resilience mahi — because food security is not a competition. When neighbours replicate the pantry idea, fill a shelf, or share produce freely, the whole rohe is stronger.

Find food help and local pantries on KaiResilience.food. For Poutiri Wellness Centre, visit poutiri.org.nz.

Vector Group Charitable Trust · CC45966 · Te Puke