Join us for another visit in our ‘Meet the Neighbours’ series, this time at the Sustainablilty Trust. Many of you will be familiar with the name, but how much do you know about what they do to support people in the Wellington region, educate, and encourage us to reduce, repair, reuse and recycle?
Kim Tabrum, Lead Educator, will introduce us to the scope of the work undertaken by the Trust since it’s beginnings at Porirua’s Trash Palace almost 20 years ago, where a few keen environmentalists talked to people about ways to reduce their waste and live in balance with the environment, now a very familiar concept to us.
They hit their stride the following year when the government started funding insulation to create healthier, more energy efficient homes for low-income families. The Trust successfully applied to become a partner, ordered their first container of insulation, and warmed up 68 homes that year. Now they insulate an average of 900 homes a year.
Steady growth since 2004 has allowed the refit of a central Wellington space to create a warm and busy EcoCentre, which now houses 70 staff and over 50 volunteers all focused on supporting people to reduce their impact on the environment.
A few of their undertakings include helping families achieve a warm, dry home that is safe for the whole household. Two free in-home programmes – Well Homes & Warm Fuzzies – can help with curtains, on-the-spot installs, advice and support. The Welly Urban Food Org (UFO) supports anyone in Wellington to learn how to garden and help communities to set up shared gardens, and they also upcycle pre-loved curtains and provide them to low-income families and individuals in the Wellington Region.
Our Koha for this visit will support the Wellington Curtain Bank.
Please gather in the main entry to the Trust by 10.45am.
Includes talk, koha and parking at Te Papa