Double your impact for tamariki this Christmas

 

Every dollar you give puts two on the table

Our supporters will match your donation dollar for dollar during our Christmas Appeal

Until [Date]. Up to [Value].

Garden to Table empowers tamariki across Aotearoa New Zealand to whanake (grow), hauhake (harvest), whakarite (prepare), and whāngai (share) fresh and seasonal kai.

Our dream is for every child in Aotearoa to have the opportunity and resources to grow, cook, and share fresh kai as part of daily life. 

Your donation will help us realise that dream, and embed our food education programme at more schools across the motu.

With your support, more tamariki will learn vital life skills - ensuring a brighter future for them, their whānau, and communities.

“When we sit down to share kai together as a whole school prepared by our students and harvested from our gardens, it feels like staff and students have just deeply exhaled. A big family sharing and enjoying togetherness. The talk is light and excited about the learning"

— School Principal

"Through Garden to Table, kids learn basic skills toward gaining independence. Learning about good foods, how to grow and prepare them. The kids learn about the environment, seasons, cultural aspects of food. Cooking involves maths. Garden to Table helps kids with cooperating with each other"

— Volunteer

"Garden to Table is good because you can learn to cook and plant and bake and how to look after plants. I find Garden to Table good in building your confidence in cooking and being in the garden more often and a good way to start to learn to cook for when you are older"

— Student

You only have until [DATE] to ensure your impact for tamariki is doubled - so please click the donate button today!

Ngā mihi maioha - thank you for caring for tamariki in Aotearoa New Zealand.

Thank you to our matched donors

  • Grant Thornton

    Meet Stephanie Jeffreys, she works at Grant Thornton as Director of Financial Advisory Services. Steph has children at Northcote Primary School and thinks the Garden to Table programme is fantastic. As part of Grant Thornton's support of Garden to Table, Steph has also volunteered.

    “My daughter ate food she wouldn’t normally try which was great since she was quite a picky eater beforehand. I love the fact the kids do the whole process from gardening to preparing food and cooking. Garden to Table has meant both of my children now cook more at home”

    Grant Thornton are a valued sponsor of Garden to Table, supporting in a number of ways, including volunteering.

  • My Food Bag

    This is Jo Mitchell, Chief Customer Officer at My Food Bag. A short time ago, Jo saw Garden to Table in action.

    “It was pure joy seeing the kids out in the garden at Forrest Hill School recently. Everyone was thoroughly enjoying their role in either planting seeds, tending to the garden or preparing and cooking a meal from vegetables picked that day. Great to see genuine life skills being taught and learnt in a beautiful garden, that the school and kids should be proud of!”

    My Food Bag is built on the foundation of providing healthy food choices, and believe strongly in the farm to plate concept. We’re on a mission to make a difference in our communities through improving kids’ food choices and promote healthy eating for all Kiwi’s with our support of Garden to Table.

The impact of your support

Today, over 300 schools are involved in Garden to Table.

That means that every year, 30,000 tamariki have the opportunity to cook delicious kai from scratch, using fresh bounty, straight from the māra kai (garden).

The benefits of Garden to Table radiate far beyond the school gates. As tamariki take their new skills, knowledge, and enthusiasm for seasonal dishes home to their whānau, ripples of positive impact are generated within broader communities. Over time, this builds community wellbeing and food security.

Your donation will ensure more students can access these benefits, and build vital skills for life.

Forrest Hill’s community connections

Four years ago, the staff at Forrest Hill School came together, united by their vision to inspire tamariki to think about food differently. Today, they run a thriving Garden to Table programme that holds community, diversity and interculturality at its heart, and teaches tamariki about self-confidence, problem-solving, and perseverance.

A budding environmental changemaker

Not many nine-year-olds are engaged with political campaigning for the environment. But, Auckland-based Nico Tauri is on a mission to have every school in New Zealand install compost bins. It all stems back to his time at Kororāreka Russell School in the Bay of Islands, where he participated in Garden to Table, and came to understand the environmental impacts of his food choices.

Nurturing the enviornment, nurturing self

From the outside, Garden to Table may look like a simple food education programme, where children learn to grow and cook fresh food. But, there’s much more than first meets the eye. In fact, as tamariki learn to grow, harvest, prepare, and share good food through the Garden to Table programme, they also learn how to nurture Papatūānuku (our Earth Mother). This, in turn, benefits their own hauora (health and wellbeing).