An outdoor community pantry and breakfast for tradies are two of the latest community initiatives making a difference in Central.

The projects have been made possible thanks to wellbeing funding distributed across the Southern Lakes region with the aim of improving mental wellbeing, social connection and resilience.

A record $91,500 of wellbeing funding will be injected into communities for a range of initiatives across the Southern Lakes region over the next few months.

Te Hau Toka Southern Lakes Wellbeing Group has funded 110 groups in its Connecting Communities funding round, including in Queenstown and Wānaka.

In Cromwell the funding has also gone towards volunteer welfare resources for St John’s Central Otago Major Incident Support Team.

Te Hau Toka Southern Lakes Wellbeing Group Chair Adell Cox said the response and calibre of applications were “simply outstanding”.

“Applications increased nearly 40 percent – up from a record number last time – which shows how motivated our communities are to improve their wellbeing. We’re loving seeing groups join forces on initiatives and smaller places like Milford Sound coming up with community-wide ideas to bring everyone together. We’ve done our best to fund as many groups as possible to get their activities underway.”

The group has partnered with the Community Harvest Gardens in Cromwell to build an outdoor community pantry, and then they are also planning to build cabins or a tiny home to auction off - the proceeds going to a mental health charity.

Applications from both Fiordland and Cromwell were particularly strong in this round, with recipients receiving funding for a range of new ideas as well as building on existing successful initiatives. 

 Another new initiative funded was Cromwell Community House hosting and co-facilitating ‘Working Well’ Tradies Breakfasts.

“Our aim is to bring small groups of businesses together over breakfast to raise awareness of the importance of mental health and fitness in a group setting, which is less confronting than one-to-one. We’ll also share the Five Ways to Wellbeing and how these can be applied in construction and trade settings,”  Cromwell Community House manager Karen Palmer said.

Te Hau Toka introduced the Connecting Communities fund in November 2021 as part of its efforts to combat the ongoing mental health impacts of Covid-19.  

Since then, there have been seven funding rounds, 439 recipients and over $410,000 injected across Queenstown, Wānaka, Cromwell and Fiordland to help people improve mental wellbeing, social connection and resilience in their own communities.