Wai-Ora

22/06/2026

Even on a freezing cold, icy morning here in Otautahi, if you look close enough there is beauty in our world.

Have an amazing week whanau.

14/06/2026

A heartfelt thank you to our community 🙏

For the past two years, our Kai Box Champions have helped us support hundreds of whānau by sponsoring a month's worth of pantry items at a time. It's made a real difference to so many families across our community.

But the truth is, it was only ever a small pool of champions we kept returning to for support. With the challenging business environment over the past 12 months, we didn't feel right continuing to lean on these same generous individuals and businesses. So, this year we made the call not to run our Kai Box Champion programme.

And yet, week after week, the generosity of our community continues to amaze us.
This week we want to acknowledge Shane and Andrea from Sheffield Crescent Auto Centre 2014 Ltd who have once again serviced our foodbank van free of charge. Their generosity means the money we would have spent on servicing goes straight back into kai for our Kai Box recipients. We're so grateful, you two.

We also want to mihi to Kate Coulter and the students and wider community of Christian School, who last week ran a can drive and collected hundreds of cans of food, all donated to our Kai Boxes. Hillview holds a special place for our whānau — it's where Ricky and Cindy's Tamariki attended when they were young. Our oldest boy Todd headed back on Friday to pick up the cans, say a big mihi to Kate and the kids, and even ran into a few of his old teachers along the way.

It's especially pleasing to have Todd and his wife Hailey featured in these photos.
To everyone who continues to give — whether it's your time, your skills, or kai off the shelf — ngā mihi nui ki a koutou.

You are the reason this mahi keeps going. ❤️

And remember ...

"Nāku te rourou, nāu te rourou, ka ora ai te iwi" - "With my food basket and your food basket, the people will thrive."

07/06/2026

Today we want to acknowledge the newly appointed Māori Bishop to Te Waipounamu, Bishop Susan Wallace.

On Saturday, Ricky and Cindy joined with hundreds of others from around the country, and overseas in witnessing this celebration at the cardboard cathedral here in Otautahi.

Bishop Susan is the daughter of former Bishop Richard Wallace and Whaea Mere Wallace.

It was an honor to be present in a space that our co founders, Matua George, and Whaea Wyn held so dearly and were so active in.

03/06/2026

🌱 Another great day out planting 1,750 native plants as part of the Whakaora Te Waikēkēwai restoration project — with another 1,700 set to go in the ground over by the end of June.

Every plant eco-sourced and grown at our Wai-Ora nursery, ready to do their bit restoring this special awa — stabilising the banks, improving water quality, and bringing back habitat for native birds, fish and insects.

A big shout out to our Ecological Contracting (EC) crew who did a top job getting these in. Quality work as always.

About the project
Whakaora Te Waikēkēwai is a five-year, $4 million restoration project led by Te Taumutu Rūnanga, with support from Environment Canterbury (ECan) through the Te Waihora Co-Governance Group, and funding from the Ministry for the Environment's Freshwater Improvement Fund. It's restoring 8km of the Te Waikēkēwai Stream, which feeds into Te Waihora / Lake Ellesmere.

The mahi is already paying off — rare birds like kōtuku (white heron) and matuku-hūrepo (bittern) have been spotted at the restored wetland. And earlier this year, the project was awarded the prestigious Te Waka o Aoraki trophy for conservation excellence in the Canterbury region.

A real privilege to be part of this kaupapa. People healing the land, and the land healing people.

Got a planting project coming up?
We'd love to help. Whether you need eco-sourced native plants from our nursery, a skilled crew to get them in the ground, or both — get in touch with the Wai-Ora team. From small community plantings through to large-scale riparian and ecological restoration, we've got you covered.
📞 Give us a call or flick us a message to chat.

Ngā mihi to Te Taumutu Rūnanga and ECan.

27/05/2026

A huge ngā mihi nui to the Christchurch City Council for backing our volunteer programmes with funding towards a Volunteer Coordinator and tools for our team.

This support is helping us look after the people who give their time so generously to Wai-Ora — and what a massive ammount they achieve as part of our whanau. In the past 6 months our volunteers have worked alongside us in the foodbank and community lunches, pruned our orchard so the fruit can go straight into food boxes for whānau, w**ded in our eco-sourced nursery (which has just grown over 400,000 native plants this year), restored our pā harakeke for weaving, and kept our whenua tidy.

On top of all that, our volunteer crew is out four days a week in CCC parks and reserves — w**ding, mulching, and planting alongside the park rangers.

It's humbling to watch what happens when good people, good kaupapa, and the right support come together. To every volunteer who's pulled on the gumboots, sharpened the secateurs, moved mulch, packed kai or stood in the kitchen with us — thank you.

And thank you to the Council for making sure we can keep looking after them properly.

Ngā mihi maioha.

24/05/2026

It's planting season and our eco sourced native plants are flying out the gate as they head to locations around the Canterbury region to be planted in restoration projects far and wide.

This year we have tested and utilized a number of controls to ensure our plants are in the best condition we can have them and as you can see from the photos below, sometimes the results are gob smacking.

The first 2 photos are of a batch of plants which we hadn't treated and that required a massive effort to w**d. You can see that most of the plants have been w**ded but you can also see the number of w**ds left to pull. This whole untreated batch was full of w**ds.

Compare this with the last photo which show a batch that was treated with "Barricade". Far less w**ds means far less labor and a much quicker dispatch process.

12/05/2026

Silt Sock is another Wai-Ora Social Enterprise, protecting the environment while supporting the community!

Protecting whenua (land), supporting whānau (family) 🌱

A big thanks to Colab Construct for choosing our silt socks for their site. Jarryd swung by the nursery this morning to pick up a special sizes order — sorted and ready to go.

Every silt sock on a construction site does two jobs at once: it keeps sediment out of our waterways, protecting the land and water that sustain us all — toitū te whenua, toitū te wai (the land endures, the water endures) — and because we're a social enterprise, every dollar of profit goes straight back into our charitable mahi (work).

Food parcels, community lunches, accommodation for whānau (families) in need, volunteer support — all of it is funded by partnerships like this one.

So when companies like Colab Construct choose us, they're not just ticking an environmental compliance box.

They're helping feed families and strengthen our community right here in Waitaha (Canterbury).

Ngā mihi nui (many thanks), Colab Construct — we appreciate you. 🙌

11/05/2026

🌿 Another planting project wrapped up for Environment Canterbury (ECan) — this time enhancing the berms along the upper Selwyn River.

1,500 native plants in the ground, every one of them eco-sourced and grown right here at our Wai-Ora nursery. From seed to site, each plant plays its part — stabilising the riverbanks, filtering runoff before it reaches the water, and creating habitat for the birds, lizards and insects that call this catchment home.

A big shout out to our Ecological Contracting (EC) crew who did a cracking job getting all 1,500 plants into the ground. Quality work, start to finish.

This is what we love — people healing the land, and the land healing people. The full cycle, all under one roof: our nursery raising the plants, our EC team establishing them on site.

Got a planting project coming up? We'd love to help. Whether you need eco-sourced native plants from our nursery, a skilled crew to get them in the ground, or both — get in touch with the Wai-Ora team. From small community plantings through to large-scale riparian and ecological restoration, we've got you covered.

📞 Give us a call or flick us a message to chat about your project.
Ngā mihi to the team at ECan for the opportunity.

07/05/2026

What a wonderful world.....

05/05/2026

A week ago we shared a post about Okioki, not really knowing what to expect.
What followed left us a bit speechless. Hundreds of likes. Dozens of comments.

Story after story — the camps, the conversations, the quiet moments, the meals, the tears, the laughter, the rest. Decades of memories, all pointing to the same thing: that Okioki has held something sacred for so many people, for a very long time.

Reading them back has been a gift. Thank you for sharing them.
For those who haven't heard yet — we're working to bring Okioki back to life as a place of rest, ready to welcome a new generation of people into the same kind of moments so many of you described.

To do that, we need to furnish it. Beds, bedding, a kitchen, a lounge, a washing machine — the everyday things that turn a house into a home. We've just launched a Givealittle page with a goal of $25,000, and every contribution, no matter the size, helps.

In loving memory of Whaea Wyn Ehau, who went home to the Lord earlier this year, our CEO Ricky and his wife Cindy have made the first donation in her honor.

Many of you will remember Wyn and her love for this place — what a beautiful way for the campaign to begin. 🤍

If giving isn't possible right now, please don't feel any pressure at all. Sharing this post with someone who might want to be part of it is just as valuable to us — maybe more.

And if all you do is remember Okioki and what it's meant to you over the years, we're grateful for that too.

If you do feel to donate, simply click on the link below.

Ngā mihi nui from all of us at Wai-Ora.

"Okioki" means rest. Help us furnish our Kaikoura community cottage where people can finally take a breath and find some rest.