Feb 2021
Igniting the flame
The youth team met up with these inspirational leaders who are joining the ignite programme. The purpose of our ignite team is a program for students who have left high school who would like to continue their journey within vinnies. Igniters are guided by our youth team who work with them to develop their leadership skills, through this igniters help mentor our AVSSC student leaders in the hopes that they too feel inspired enough to become igniters and carry on the flame of vinnies. This initial meeting was to help our new igniters adjust into their new group and meet with past igniters and gain a new perspective into what ignite has been for them.
Level 3 lockdown
This month Auckland faced 2 lockdowns only seven days apart. The team saw the first week start off with an influx of calls and constant food going out into the community for those who needed them. With the unexpected lockdown the team at biteLAB donated 8000+ packed lunches that were meant to be distributed in schools and this was immediately distributed to families. The lunches were all spread out into the community such as the Mother of Divine mercy refuge, Estern Women’s Refuge, western village, central auckland retirement flats, auckland motorhome, and st josephs school. Throughout the lockdowns many families reached out for our services and our team served over 1000 families over the first 3 day lockdown.
The second lockdown saw 250 families on the first day coming through for food parcels and assistance. The team were really grateful for Food network and Kiwi harvest for always heeding the call and helping the team out with the lockdown. With this we had many helpers such as the Marist seminarians who helped prepare 200 food bags for our west Auckland food delivery run. Vinnies also put out a call for helpers to help pack parcels as the surge of calls came through for our service during the second lockdown. This saw the team getting help from many volunteers such as, the LOGOS project team and our igniters coming through to help pack parcels.
VINNIES NEWS 