Working with a huge variety of community members, these classes are designed to teach the basics daily dishes of healthy breakfasts, lunches, after school snacks and a dinner meal that can all be easily prepare at home with whanau.  These classes teach a few basic techniques, kitchen hygiene and kai preparations that are building blocks to encourage further interest in how and what we eat, environmental impacts and seasonal eating.  Class participants include English Language students, who also teach us a dish from their culture in return, after school classes for all ages, seniors demo classes, mixed ability cooks and young mums – who are all encouraged to share their kai journeys and recipes too. The more cultures to have a seat at the table, the better our world will be. 

Koha Kai parcels every Wednesday at both hubs, our amazing team of kai volunteers sort and distribute rescued kai that we collect from our wonderful supporters at Fair Food. This amazing organisation rescues between 6-7 tonnes of kai from supermarkets in Auckland, weekly, that would otherwise be destined for landfill. We collect approximately 200kg of kai weekly and between both hubs this food is distributed to our community within a matter of hours.

This new project is an initiative under the Mana Motuhake o te Kai framework that is designed to offer a fresh, home grown kai experience to members of our community, by collaborating with other community development projects such as Salvation Army Westgate, Te Whanau o Waipareira Trust and Henderson Budgeting services. The rotation of seedlings and seed planting is supported by volunteers and West Harbour School tamariki Enviro Team – adding further involvement in this cycle of support and learning. Development of this project has been gratefully supported by the EcoMatters Love Your Neighbours fund and the Trusts Henderson.

Massey Matters are proud to be a part of the Massey Kai Village initiative is bringing together a network of partners in the local kai ecosystem, known as the kai network, to take a collaborative approach to minimise overlap and maximise available resources to foster local food resilience and sovereignty.  Looking ahead, the Massey Kai Village initiative represents a promising model for building community connections through kai with the support of a local kai network, underpinned by a shared commitment to promoting wellbeing and food resilience for local community.  Being situated beside the beautiful Triangle Park Community Teaching Garden also strengthens our ties with gardening, volunteer sharing and learning opportunities.