Where do thousands of uneaten taxpayer-funded school lunches go?

Wednesday, 12 May 2021

Hamilton community centre manager Neil Tolan is grateful for leftover lunches from the Government's Ka Ora, Ka Ako school lunch programme, as is Kaivolution which helps distribute the lunches to night shelters and women's refuges.

When a cheese and mayo sandwich mountain lands at Neil Tolan’s door, he doesn’t complain.

The Hamilton community centre manager is tasked with redistributing hundreds, sometimes thousands of lunches kids have snubbed from the Government's Ka Ora, Ka Ako programme.

Stuff revealed on Wednesday the Government is not counting the number of uneaten school lunches in the multimillion-dollar flagship programme.

About 1000 cheese and mayonnaise sandwiches were dropped off at the Western Community Centre in May. Manager Neil Tolan said those who pick them up are hugely grateful.

As opposition MPs lambasted the programme as “poorly targeted” and “irresponsible”, community leaders told Stuff the lunches are not being wasted.

And the Salvation Army says more people across the country rely on community centres to feed themselves and their families.

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Leftover sandwiches from the Ka Ora Ka Ako programme at the Western Community Centre in Hamilton. Kids at the skate park get hungry in the afternoons and loved them toasted, Tolan said.

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In Hamilton, Kaivolution estimates up to 1500 school lunches need to be redistributed throughout the city each day. Along with community centres, night shelters and Women’s Refuge are also part of Kaivolution’s network.

Western Community Centre’s Tolan said he receives between 100 and 500 lunches every day.

Max Toimata picks up the sandwiches to help keep her seven children full. She shares the lunches with her sister’s family too.

The number of untouched lunches landing at the centre can depend on what’s on the menu, he said.

“Today there were some sandwiches with a bit of cheese and a bit of mayo, and that doesn’t seem to be as popular as some other lunches they offer.”

The community centre offers the school lunches along with other free bread, fruit and vegetables.

Tolan saw a whole range of people pick up the leftover lunches, many were families of school students.

“The food is not being wasted, it is all being used, and we see families come in and get those parcels, and they’re excited because they can go away and give it to their neighbours and give it to their families. It’s a feel-good thing.”

On average, Annie Williams, at Annie’s Corner in Enderley, receives about 160 leftover school lunches from Fairfield College each day. She helps distribute the food back into the community.

He said he rarely had to throw any lunches out as they were so popular.

“I think there were 10 or 20 we had to throw out once because there was chicken in it.”

On the cheese and mayo sandwich day, Max Toimata said picking up the spare lunches was a real help.

Fairfield College principal Richard Crawford says the school lunches in the Government's Ka Ora, Ka Ako programme have been a 'game-changer' in reducing barriers for some kids who were going hungry.

Toimata said she’d toast the sandwiches for her seven children that night, and would also be sharing with her sister who has eight grandchildren.

She has two sons at a Hamilton high school, but they were often too shy to pick up the free lunch.

“I think maybe they could put the food out in a way that isn’t so obvious.

“I ask them, ‘Don’t you guys eat?’ And they say, ‘No, shame,’ because they think it’s shameful to get the lunches.”

She said the school lunches programme had been “awesome” for her family.

“I don’t have to worry about the money to buy lunches, that was quite a big, stressful thing for me.”

Annie Williams, who runs Annie’s Corner foodbank in Enderley, said she received about 160 school lunches every day to give back to the community.

Williams was contacted by Fairfield College principal Richard Crawford to help redistribute the unopened lunches from his school.

“Once it hits my floor, it’s for the whole family,” she said. “It’s not just for kids, it’s for nanny and koro, mum and dad, aunty and uncle, whoever.”

Children go to her house after school, asking to take the lunches because there wasn’t any food at home, she said.

Williams has delivered food to families for years – first driving to families in her car then creating a foodbank at her house in Poet’s Corner.

The need for food had increased, she said, especially from working parents.

“They’ve got their rents or mortgages, health costs, vehicle insurances, and at the end of the week there’s nothing left over for kai.”

The Salvation Army’s Jono Bell said that the “ultimate dream” was that the wider community did not have to rely on leftover school lunches for food supplies.

Across the country, more and more people needed community centres for food, especially after the Covid-19 lockdown, Bell told Stuff.

Increasing rental costs weren’t being matched by incomes, and people’s budgets were getting desperate.

“On a weekly basis we hear in our community centres that landlords have put rents up by $30, $50, to $100 per week.

“That’s money that comes out of food,” Bell said.