After the town of Wairoa was devastated by Cyclone Garbrielle, the town’s iwi and hapū began coordinating an immediate response to provide essential food and supplies to the community.

Central to the relief effort was the need for a safe and secure central hub, where agencies could gather together to coordinate the relief efforts. The town’s existing foodbank was flooded during the cyclone, so the need for a new site was urgent.

At the time of the cyclone, PGG Wrightson had ownership of the vacant New World supermarket site, so when the call for help came from iwi Tātau Tātau o Te Wairoa, the PGG Wrightson property team were only too happy to come on board and provide the use of the building at no cost to support the relief effort.

Lewis Ratapu, CEO Tātau Tātau o Te Wairoa says, “The generous gift from PGG Wrightson to use the old New World building as a distribution hub for essential food and supplies is enormous. The hub will support welfare agencies to carry on their work to awhi over 600 whānau displaced from the flood.”

As the massive clean-up task is undertaken, Lewis explains the building will be used to provide equipment, materials and protective equipment for the teams cleaning up the 300 affected homes in the community.

PGG Wrightson National Property Manager, Doug Cartridge says, ”It was immediately obvious that the town needed a safe place to coordinate the relief efforts. Our PGG Wrightson Wairoa store and staff are part of the close-knit community and were also facing the impacts of the cyclone, so we wanted to help the community in a practical way.”

Lewis adds, “The iwi, hapū and communities of Te Wairoa are grateful for PGG Wrightson’s response to our call to help whānau here. Ngā mihi nūnui kia kōutou e tautoko ana ō tātau hāpori e āwangawanga ana kia tū anō!” 

^{Image supplied: RNZ}