{"id":208142,"date":"2025-12-30T09:23:11","date_gmt":"2025-12-30T09:23:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/208142\/"},"modified":"2025-12-30T09:23:11","modified_gmt":"2025-12-30T09:23:11","slug":"whangarei-charity-soul-food-ends-monday-night-free-meals-after-14-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/208142\/","title":{"rendered":"Whang\u0101rei charity Soul Food ends Monday night free meals after 14 years"},"content":{"rendered":"

The last dinner was a special Christmas one<\/a>, on December 22.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt hasn\u2019t been a light decision,\u201d said Hedges-Youens, who admitted to shedding tears over the end of the weekly meals. \u201cI want to focus on family now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Youens said the weekly meals took plenty of commitment<\/a> from the couple, who picked up donated food, stored items in their personal freezers and made sure they had all the ingredients for the next meal.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs soon as we\u2019ve done the Monday meal, we\u2019re organising the following week,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The food parcels will still involve picking up and storing donated food, but the couple will have more control over what days to volunteer, Youens said.<\/p>\n

Soul Food was begun to help feed those who were struggling, with Hedges-Youens motivated by a rough time in her teenage years.<\/p>\n

In the past 14 years, it has changed what it offers, from on-site meals twice a week to takeaway meals offered on Mondays.<\/p>\n

Hedges-Youens said the service was originally moved around the city, including using the Rose St Bus Stop and Water St carpark, but it has been settled in the Anglican Church hall for eight or nine years.<\/p>\n

Since it started, more community organisations have been set up to help feed Whang\u0101rei\u2019s rough sleepers<\/a>, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel a bit of relief now knowing that there are other places that actually do a free meal<\/a> because when we started, there was no one,\u201d Hedges-Youens said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re grateful that they\u2019re still going to be fed and looked after.\u201d<\/p>\n

The couple have given plenty to Soul Food, but they have also gained a good deal from the charity, Hedges-Youens said.<\/p>\n

The pair met through Soul Food and eventually married in the Anglican Church across the road from the hall, bringing up their blended family to help with the volunteering, she said.<\/p>\n

Hedges-Youens has been struggling with fatigue due to an uncontrolled health condition, and she will now focus on her own health and her family.<\/p>\n

Denise Piper is a news reporter<\/a> for the Northern Advocate, focusing on health and business. She has more than 20 years in journalism and is passionate about covering stories that make a difference.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The last dinner was a special Christmas one, on December 22. \u201cIt hasn\u2019t been a light decision,\u201d said…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":208143,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[22256,74,1977,4726,60508,564,4975,134,9832,681,3120,4515,9878,111,43,139,2551,69,126979,48717,4918,75000,1869,57767,5977,1530],"class_list":["post-208142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-22256","tag-after","tag-charity","tag-ends","tag-feed","tag-food","tag-free","tag-health","tag-helped","tag-homeless","tag-main","tag-meals","tag-monday","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-night","tag-nz","tag-onceaweek","tag-organiser","tag-soul","tag-stopping","tag-whangrei","tag-whangreis","tag-which","tag-years"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208142","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=208142"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208142\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/208143"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=208142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=208142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=208142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}