Our Story

Our roots

Our story has its roots in a simple act of generosity. In July 2022, a local man, and our founder Carla’s father, spontaneously gifted his surplus garden tools to a refugee family after hearing how they were trying to grow coriander and parsley in a clay bank using only their hands as digging tools. This act of generosity and reciprocity sparked the seed that became Give to Grow Ōtepoti.

Fast forward a couple of years and after many conversations, connections and subsequent acts of generosity by local people, businesses and organisations, Give to Grow Ōtepoti developed into the organisation it is today

Our values

Kotahitanga: partnership sits at the core of all we do. This includes partnering with other wonderful local organisations, as well as those who wish to give or receive garden resources.

Manaakitanga: we’re all about generosity and sharing at Give to Grow Ōtepoti. This is reflected in our tagline: ‘supporting sharing’.

Supporting sharing

Give to Grow is founded in generosity and sharing and is based on a really simple idea: that of using two existing problems to solve each other. On one hand we have people storing excess garden tools who need or want to free up space. On the other hand we have people who would like to and/or need to grow their own food but do not have all the resources to do so.

Sharing - through the collection and redistribution of gardening resources - enables these two problems to become solutions for each other.

Our story continues to grow – we’d love you to be a part of it.