Donation gives BOP youngsters a lift up

Year 10 Mount Maunganui College students in the Project K programme at the cheque presentation. Photo: Nikki South.

A Tauranga organisation is doing its part to help improve the lives of children and young adults throughout the Bay of Plenty.

Bidfood Tauranga has recently presented a cheque for $15,000 to the Graeme Dingle Foundation Bay of Plenty, amongst what has been described as a long term partnership.

'Bidfood are a long term supporters of ours,” says Graeme Dingle Foundation BOP Trust founder Dan Allen-Gordon.

'They support us in everything whether that's sponsoring our events or our programmes.”

On a national level, the organisation has supported the Foundation for Youth Development and their Project K Programme for more than eight years.

In that time it's donated close to $400,000, with many branches also doing their own fundraising over and above to help support the cause.

Bidfood Tauranga is one of many being a testimony to this, recently having donated $15,000.

The cheque handover involved programme leaders along with Year 10 students from Mount Maunganui College, who are currently part of the Project K programme.

'They are in the last week of their community challenges and have been helping different organisations including Homes of Hope, Good Neighbour Trust and the Historic Village,” says Dan.

'This is all possible because of the support we receive from Bidfood. We've got our two programmes running and if it wasn't for them we'd probably be down to two.

'It really does help to make a massive difference to changing the lives of young people in Tauranga.

'Bidfood actually put a lot of effort into fundraising for us. A portion of profits made from some of their lines actually go directly to us.”

He says it's not just monetary support either.

'Two of our Otumoetai College boys will be starting work with Bidfood over the summer holidays. They'll be out on the trucks, helping with deliveries six days a week during one of the busiest times of the year.

'They're very hands on, they help with product, when we need it at our events like graduations. They actually attend a lot of these events and they're fully involved.”

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