Nelson College nourishes needy

It was a five-day food fight of sorts with Nelson College students and staff pitting their wits to stock up “one of the biggest” Nelson Community Food Bank donations.

Ninety-eight boxes and bags bursting with food items and a few cleaning products were garnered by the college’s staff, its preparatory school, its 20 homerooms, and around 40 participating local businesses between 2 and 6 December.

The fruitful cause was principled by the college’s counselling department and its head Heledd Davis says the collections became a “fierce” competition with a “phenomenal” response.

“Staff bought groceries to tip the scales in their house’s favour because there was a tally on each of the boxes,” she says.

“Each class had a student leader, and they would rally the troops and distribute flyers and posters within their own homeroom.

“They also competed with one another to make the greatest contribution to the drive by going grocery shopping so they could beat the other houses, and, in the end, the boarding staff won.”

Heledd says the competition was also an opportunity to serve up food for thought in the way of the Mental Health Foundation’s Five Ways to Wellbeing which are Connect, Be Active, Keep Learning, Give and Take Notice.

“Especially with our year nines and tens, when the seniors leave, it can be a little disjointing for them,” she says.

“It was a matter of what can we do to increase our wellness, mental health and our sense of community and sense of belonging.”

Nelson Community Food Bank manager Neville Hadfield says the “very impressive” haul was “one of the biggest” ever donated.

“We’re very appreciative of what the college has done, it was a massive amount of products,” he says.

Neville says while the college’s total would be hard to break down into how many food parcels it would equate to, he says around 12,500 people benefitted this year with around 3700 parcels made up from donations to the Food Bank.