Good Neighbour, local businesses team up to help out
Good Neighbour has teamed up with local businesses to implement a neighbourhood makeover in the Tauranga suburb of Judea.
The charitable non-profit community organisation has mobilised 60 volunteers from Zespri, Hill Laboratories, and KPMG to paint fences, put up new ones where needed, garden, and clean-up the 34 properties in a community housing provider Accessible Properties’ housing area.
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“To start with, the tenants had some undesirable neighbours living here, and the neighbourhood wasn't very happy,” Angela Rogers, Good Neighbour urban mahi manager, told local media SunLive.
“So Accessible Properties teamed up with us to come here and host a barbecue to find out what the tenants needs were. After this, we came back to paint fences, as well as do some water blasting, gardening, pruning around the area. It's a really great initiative, and with our 60 volunteers, we're looking at about 160 hours of total work being done here today.”
Good Neighbour also set up a neighbourhood clean-up to help some people in the area who “cannot afford rubbish collection”.
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“We've asked if the tenants would like for us to take some of their rubbish away for them, and we teamed up with the Tauranga City Council to make this happen,” Rogers said.
Among the volunteers were Pacific Toyota employees who catered for the hardworking fence painters and nearby residents. The company has also sponsored some of Good Neighbours vehicles, they said.
Amy McKenzie, Pacific Toyota marketing and design specialist, said their team volunteers for Good Neighbour whenever they can, due to a “similarity in values”.
“We enjoy being part of the Bay of Plenty community,” McKenzie told SunLive. “It’s really all about how much we can help people. By teaming up with Good Neighbour, we know any efforts towards helping people are going to go really far.”
One of the important elements of carrying out this kind of project, Rogers said, was building trust with the community they worked with.
“This is about creating healthy communities,” she said. “Our vision is to inspire everyone in New Zealand to see the needs of people next to them and respond with kindness and generosity. The best thing you can do to help people is to inconvenience yourself. If you're not doing that, you're probably not helping.”
To get involved with projects like this, Rogers encouraged people to visit the Good Neighbour website.
