Bellyful Stories
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Share Your Bellyful Story
Has Bellyful made a difference in your life? Whether you’ve received meals, volunteered, or supported us, we’d love to hear your story! Your experience helps us inspire others and show the impact of a warm meal and a caring community.
Colleagues raise a bundle for Bellyful
A workplace movement challenge has raised almost enough to provide three nights of meals for a whopping 70 whānau. The seven members of the Cloudcheck crew have raised $1,696 via Givealittle, participating in a global challenge run by their parent company GBG. Staff...
Bellyful celebrates delivering 200,000 meals!
Bellyful is marking the massive milestone of delivering 200,000 meals. The volunteer-powered charity cooks and delivers free, yummy meals to whānau, with babies or young children, who need support. “They say it takes a village, but we know for many that village does...
More than a token: Z’s flagship feel-good initiative returns
Good in the Hood, one of the best-loved local community fundraisers, is bringing back the positive energy of giving in 2022. Bellyful is a growing charity which delivers nourishing free meals to families with babies and young children who need support. The Hutt Valley...
A decade of Bellyful of good
Bellyful Tauranga is celebrating 10 years of filling bellies across the Bay of Plenty. “We’re all about nourishing and connecting communities by cooking and delivering free meals to whānau, particularly those with newborn babies or young children, who need support,”...
New Fidelity Life Sponsorships Aim To Make A Long-term Difference To New Zealand Communities
New Zealand’s largest locally owned life insurer Fidelity Life has announced its sponsorship of two local not-for-profit organisations, Outward Bound and Bellyful, to help bolster the charities’ respective operations and give back to New Zealanders in a meaningful...
Bellyful expands into Hastings
Bellyful Napier is expanding into Hastings and changing its name to Bellyful Hawke’s Bay to reflect its wider reach. “We deliver yummy frozen meals to anyone with a baby or young children, who doesn’t have that kind of support,” says Bellyful Hawke’s Bay Branch...
Bellyful New Plymouth extends reach into Stratford
Bellyful's New Plymouth branch wants to expand meal deliveries to the Stratford area but needs a team of local drivers to make the deliveries. "We'd love to bring Bellyful's practical support to whānau in Stratford," says New Plymouth branch co-ordinator Lynley...
A grandma’s gratitude
Ten years ago my first granddaughter, my second grandchild, was born at Middlemore Hospital while her parents were living in Auckland. The pregnancy had not been easy and baby was born beautiful and healthy. After a few weeks, it became obvious that she was not...
Meant to be
Eileen Bray from Dunedin shares her Bellyful volunteering story for National Volunteer Week 2022. I went to visit my daughter after her third baby in Auckland. Sadly they ended up in NICU for a couple of weeks and then went home on Oxygen 24/7 . Bellyful provided...
A love of cooking
Annette Murray from Bellyful Franklin shares her volunteering story for National Volunteer Week 2022. I was inspired to join Bellyful as it involved cooking which is something I enjoy. It was even more interesting when I found out that there were simple recipes that...
Time to Breathe
After the youngest member of the Box whānau, little Mabel, spent a week in hospital, a delivery of Bellyful meals gave the Waikato farming family a chance to catch their breath. “I hadn’t cooked a hot meal in over two weeks. It was such a huge weight off our...
Getting Through COVID
Preparing meals was the last thing Aquila and her husband had the energy for when they were sick with COVID-19. Bellyful Christchurch was able to provide meals to help the whānau while they were in isolation. “My husband and I had COVID. We did not have energy to...
Introducing our new meal
A new meal will appear in Bellyful delivery bags soon, and if our taste testers are anything to go by it may be a new whānau favourite. Our Mild Vegetarian Curry has been tested, tweaked, and perfected with the help of several of our branches and will now be rolled...
Meat the Need a real belly-filler
Collaboration between Bellyful and Meat the Need is proving to be a charity partnership with bite. A farmer-led initiative, Meat The Need, has donated more than 1,200 kilograms of mince to Bellyful in the past 12 months, helping feed around 1,600 whānau. "This...
A Huge Help
Reaching out for help can be hard. But a Tauranga mum who was brave enough to refer her whānau, says the Bellyful meals were a huge help. Aimee* lives in Tauranga with her husband, their boys aged four and two, and their little dog. “I kept getting really sick from...
Bellyful Performance Report 2020/21
We are pleased to present the 2020/2021 Performance Report for the Bellyful New Zealand Trust (Bellyful NZ). We are proud of the impact our team has had this year despite the unique and ongoing challenges the pandemic has presented. The results in this report reflect...
Reaching Out
The beautiful exhaustion of new twin babies was coupled with multiple hospital visits for Liz Buckley-Stokes. Bellyful meals helped ease the pressure. Liz, her husband and toddler had moved to a new North Canterbury town just two weeks before they welcomed their...
Meals where they are most needed
Warm meals are making a difference for often tired and stressed-out parents of babies in the Waikato Hospital Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. Bellyful Hamilton volunteers have begun delivering stocks of frozen meals to the Waikato NICU. The Neonatal Trust has purchased...
Young at (Bellyful’s) heart
When it comes to volunteering, enthusiasm is a key attribute. It is something that can be found at any age, and it is generously found in the wide-ranging spectrum of ages of the volunteers at Bellyful Christchurch. The youngest volunteer is 30 and the eldest is 81....
The Business of Giving
Owners of bulk-food store The Source Taupō, Fiona and Ken Harris are no strangers to moving home. The Taupō-based couple, who met while working in Turangi, have relocated three times over their 11-year relationship – to Vancouver, Auckland, and most recently...
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