The major weather disruptions have created a number of victims; not just people caught in the cyclone.

It’s lovely to see how people react to people in trouble; This last week in Taupo, the local school kids and Greening Taupo decided to load a heap of cool school resources into the rescue helicopter to spread the love over the hill in Hawkes Bay

Students from Waipahihi school decided to dig up seedlings of native plants and trees from their own school grounds to quickly grow them for restoring the outdoor classrooms of schools in Hawkes Bay that lost their environmental learning spaces.

“How can you learn without an outdoor classroom?” was their motivation. In early spring the plants will be transported to the Bay, to – literally – heal the soil.

Hundreds and hundreds of seedlings are now growing at Waipahihi school; some even came from a bumper crop of seedlings in the Taupo Botanic gardens.

Lovely to see how kids (and teachers!) respond to these awful situations and turn them into a social activity to support schools nearby.