Hungry To Help Laurie & Kerry's Food Fight

The Mums Are Changing the Lives of Kiwi Kids

- Julie Jacobson

Kerry Owen has never shared the real reason she started a charity to feed hungry Kiwi kids, afraid it would be seen as implausible or worse, plain weird.

The 41-year-old’s usual response to questions around why someone who once ran a successful catering company would voluntarily establish a commercial kitchen to provide meals to children in need was a general comment about her dad benefiting from the free lunches he received as a child.

“The truth,” Kerry, who emigrated to New Zealand from England tells, “is that I had a dream where I saw thousands and thousands of children going hungry in New Zealand. As I was feeding these children in the dream, I saw the impact the food was having. I woke up crying.”

The vision stuck with her and 10 years on, the work of that charity, Feed The Need, has been recognised with Stockport-born Kerry and co-founder

Aucklander Laurie WharemateKeung made Members of the New Zealand Order of Merit in the 2019 New Year Honours.

Feed The Need’s winter boost school lunch programme has seen more than 280,000 warm, nourishing meals delivered to school children at low decile South Auckland schools.

Supported by a corporate volunteer initiative and a youth placement programme, its success has been both a curse and a blessing.