{"id":538867,"date":"2026-07-22T16:26:19","date_gmt":"2026-07-22T16:26:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/538867\/"},"modified":"2026-07-22T16:26:19","modified_gmt":"2026-07-22T16:26:19","slug":"on-the-up-sweet-success-with-whangareis-citrus-for-south-collection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/538867\/","title":{"rendered":"On the Up: Sweet success with Whang\u0101rei\u2019s Citrus for South collection"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cThe helpers were all kept busy as there were lots of boxes. It was extremely successful.\u201d<\/p>\n

Support from Gary Younger\u2019s North Rentals Property Management team helped load the full boxes into trucks on Monday, ready for transport, Ward said. <\/p>\n

With 321 boxes, the fruit collected was estimated to total 6.4 tonnes, the second-largest Citrus for the South collection, he said.<\/p>\n

While fruit collection was not new in Whang\u0101rei, this iteration started 11 years ago when a former Christchurch resident noticed citrus fruit being left to rot on the ground, Ward said.<\/p>\n

She believed the fruit would be better appreciated in the South Island<\/a>, where the cold weather stopped citrus from flourishing, he said.<\/p>\n

Seventy boxes of fruit were collected the first year, with numbers increasing as more people heard about the project, Ward said.<\/p>\n

Lions even offered to help pick unwanted fruit if people were unable to do it themselves, he said.<\/p>\n

\"ManyMany hands make light work for Whang\u0101rei’s Citrus for the South collection on Sunday.<\/p>\n

Mainfreight was on board from the start, ensuring the donated fruit cost nothing to transport, Ward said.<\/p>\n

This year the fruit will be donated to Christchurch\u2019s New Zealand Food Network <\/a>\u2013 which has 14 hubs across the South Island \u2013 KiwiHarvest Food Rescue in Dunedin and the Clyde and Districts Lions Club.<\/p>\n

Ward said all the fruit was distributed to someone in need, through the likes of food parcels or distribution through schools and retirement villages.<\/p>\n

Even those in Whang\u0101rei did not miss out, with people invited to come and grab some fruit on the collection day, Ward said.<\/p>\n

Boxes of fruit were also taken to local food distribution network Whakaora Kai<\/a>, he said.<\/p>\n

This year\u2019s collection included 156 boxes of lemons, 91 boxes of grapefruit and 49 boxes of oranges, with the remaining boxes filled with mandarins and other citrus.<\/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":"\u201cThe helpers were all kept busy as there were lots of boxes. It was extremely successful.\u201d Support from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":538868,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[18658,135686,21642,6965,18660,52606,564,2082,9832,3025,111,43,139,69,90,1240,3502,14907,16800,223,810,57767,102,1530],"class_list":["post-538867","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-bumper","tag-citrus","tag-collection","tag-contributions","tag-crop","tag-drives","tag-food","tag-for","tag-helped","tag-most","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-on","tag-south","tag-success","tag-successful","tag-sweet","tag-the","tag-up","tag-whangreis","tag-with","tag-years"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538867","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=538867"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538867\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/538868"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=538867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=538867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=538867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}