I discovered this week that not only is Maketu the home of Maketu Pies and Masterchef winners Karena and Kasey Bird, but it's also home to a vibrant community hub with a huge heart.

Maketu Health and Social Services or Maketu Hauora has a dream building. This building is making many healthy and positive community experiences possible.

I called in one Thursday to see CEO Shontell Peawini about booking one of the rooms to hold a meeting. While we were talking, Jacky Butcher and other volunteers started bringing in boxes and boxes of food. They were coming from a van outside, up the sloping access into a large meeting room, with the long tables quickly filling up. Corrine Paul, who it turns out is an auntie to Karena and Kasey was directing this colossal food arrival.

'This is for food rescue,” says Corrine. 'We help about 10 to 12 families per week. And our families consist of around ten in a family.”

The families are either referred to the Hauora through budgeting services, or other kaimahi that work here have identified local families that are in need of food.

'This happens every Thursday. Good Neighbours who we get it from - they collect around about eight and a half tonnes of expired food a week that would normally be binned,” says Corrine.

'There's about 50 organisations that Good Neighbours distribute to and then we pass it on within our respective communities.”

The Hauora is into their third year distributing food supplied by the Good Neighbour's Food Rescue programme.

'We're lucky to be recipients of Good Neighbours. We work alongside these families. The budgeting service identifies that there's a need and works through a budget with the family. In the meantime they need help with this, in order to pay their debts off.”

The Hauora's building was only built about three years ago in 2016. The large room at one end of the building is ideal for sorting and packing the food into individual family lots, which are quickly sent out again brimming with fresh fruit and veges along with staples.

'We started off really small, and we've got great volunteers. Stephen Lawrence has been helping us out for three years. Also Winsome Harvey, she comes in as a volunteer and helps with food rescue.

'At Christmas time when the emergency services do the drive for cans and non-perishable food, we are the recipients of that too and so we provide food for about 80 families in the week before Christmas.”