Dave Letele shouldn’t be on his own.

The other day I heard Dave Letele of Bbeing interviewed about having to close his South Auckland foodbank. His emotional distress was genuine and completely understandable.

I then reflected on the mentality that pervades assumptions about need and scarcity.

I think I can with some confidence assume that no-one reading this is or has ever been in the position of needing the services of a foodbank.

I’d further suggest that if any of us hold an opinion about those that do need to frequent such places and that the opinion is that “these people” bring it on themselves is ill-informed and deeply unfair.

You don’t need to think too deeply, especially when you’ve visited a foodbank, a Salvation Army citadel or the Auckland City Mission, to recognise that this is a grim and soul sapping way to live.

Everyone is born innocent. No-one gets to choose their family/whanau and from the time you’re born to the time you become responsible for your own existence, you’ve acquired all the life skills that make you innovative, problem-solving, diligent, morally centred and equipped to make good quality decisions. That is if you got raised that way.

For my own story, I grew up privileged. Not wealthy, but comfortable. My parents were as in love when Dad died as they were when they met 50 years before.

My elder brothers and I had roles modelled for us that have led to us, to a greater or lesser degree, being successful in life. But from the youngest age, we were trained, coached and guided.

So many people never got that privilege and the things they got modelled for them makes them ill-equipped for life in this society. Requiring charity, being cold and damp, never having enough to eat, not enough money for the essentials in life is not a life anyone would choose.

I have a dear old friend from high school who came from a wealthy background, but has spent the best part of 35 years hitch-hiking around NZ from AA meeting to AA meeting, sleeping under bridges and buildings, dossing down on couches and occasionally coming to mine to wash his kit, wash himself and regroup for the next stint. Schizophrenia can be a cruel companion.

I went to an Auckland Chamber of Commerce Ba5 event in the last couple of months. The speaker was Wayne Brown and I wanted to know if my dim view of him was justified or not. I won’t go into that, but I will bring attention to this. The even was held at Oram Marine’s Captain’s Lounge (I think that’s what it’s called).

To get to the lounge, one had to walk through the cavernous Orams facility where tens of millions of dollars worth of boats are racked up in storage. All pleasure craft. All discretionary spend or maybe tax write-offs.

In the room was much talk about how we as a country can’t afford proper school lunches and how the indigent and bewildered and homeless spoil the tone of Auckland.

I reflected on the dissonance. We are a wealthy country with an increasingly cold and harsh view of those with nothing. I personally find this repugnant but I also hold out little hope that the government are going to make any difference with this.

That leaves it up to people in the community to step up and guard the old kiwi values of egalitarianism, compassion for the less favoured and a strong sense of being willing to give people a hand. We could argue over a “hand-up” v a “hand-out” but when you have nothing, the terms are semantics.

I am a creature of the SME sector. I look at Dave Letele’s current burning issue and think how easy it would be for a few people to make a massive difference. As challenging as times may be for many in SMEs, those problems are relative. We’re all eating and sleeping in a bed with full tums.

If 150 SME business owners committed $150.00 per week over the course of a year, that would fund a foodbank to the tune of over $1m. You might say “yes, but that’s just one foodbank. What about all the other need everywhere?” That’s a fair question and the answer is this. There are over 546,000 SMEs in NZ. Imagine each of those gave $150.00 per week. That’s almost $5.5m per week.

That money is highly likely to be tax deductible too. So, not every business may be able to afford $150.00 per week. Some may only be able to manage $25.00 per week. Other businesses may be able to afford far more than that, so no sum is invalid or too small to matter.

This isn’t just about Dave Letele and his commitment to care in the community. It’s about all the not-for-profit organisations out there. Just for the record, the term NFP is being supplanted by the term “for purpose” organisations because it better reflects the growing requirement for organisations to try and find ways of commercialising what they do and making profit from it which them gets funnelled back into the services rather than being totally dependent on government funding.

How do I know this? Because I’ve been involved with this sector almost continuously for 46 years and am passionate about community and service.

This is not an immediate plea for people to stick their hands in their pockets and start shovelling money out. There is a lot to be considered here, some logistical, some administrative and a lot of structure and purpose to be determined.

So what am I asking? Just this. You may be an SME owner. If so, what do you think of a vehicle that would enable you to painlessly make a difference in your community? You may be a supplier to SMEs. You may be a customer of SMEs. The opportunity is that you could be part of a community of responsible people doing something great, not because you are compelled to but because it is the right thing to do.

If such a vehicle existed and was transparent so you knew exactly what your money was being used for, would you dip your toe in the water?

Please respond to this. I don’t mind if you are wildly enthusiastic or bitterly opposed. I just want to take a temperature reading and your opinion matters to me.

Dave Letele