Toi Toi Charity founders Kevin and Jane Powell now face the prospect of their well-established farm education vision ending if they don’t find a new landlord for the 46-hectare western Bay of Plenty property they have been leasing for the past year.
The married duos Teacher in the Paddock education programme has built a loyal following consisting of primary school children and their parents, reconnecting children with the land and the food it can grow through after school and holiday programmes.
“We have been very fortunate where we are; we were only supposed to be here for six months and we have been given a year,” Kevin said.
“However, the family (landlord) now has to sell the property.”
Prior to this, they had been based nearer to town at Papamoa but the present 46ha of woodland, bush, stream and pasture offers an idyllic position for the couple to expand their original vision beyond its educational goals.
The land area they occupy for their sheep, cattle, horses and vegetable growing plots is a relatively small one hectare portion of the property’s 46ha, nestled against the Papamoa Hills east of Tauranga.
The programme has provided a valuable option for children who have struggled with conventional classroom environments.
The hands-on approach to cooking, growing vegetables and looking after animals has delivered real results for teachers, families and the children.
“We had a group of children classed as ‘special needs’ where mainstream was not the best fit for them,” he said.
“They started coming to us one day a week, going home grubbier and more fulfilled than when they came, and loving it.
“One even ended up coming back as a volunteer to help other children.”
The ultimate reward for the Powells was a school ceremony with certificates handed out to the children who had been regularly attending.
“I doubt they would have ever been awarded anything in their lives before, it changed them all for the better,” Kevin recalled.
Since launching, the programme has had 3200 children visit on school education programmes, and 3300 attend after school programmes with 10% of those having special needs including behavioural and social issues.
Another 2500 have enjoyed holiday programmes, and a quarter of those have behavioural issues.
For Kevin, a trained teacher who quickly tired of the classroom environment, the programme gives children the opportunity to enjoy an element of risk in their activities, something often factored out of many modern school activities.
He believes a conscientious funder who wants to invest in the preservation of wetlands and the future of children will see how the purchase of the charity’s leased block could easily bring a “win-win” for all parties.
With a purchase price of more than $2 million, there is one party ready to contribute $800,000.
He said one option could be a loan for the remainder to the charity to buy the land, and this could be repaid through the proceeds of subdivision and sale of Transferrable Development Rights (TDR).
These enable a purchaser to subdivide the property or another property elsewhere in the district that would otherwise not be subdivisible.
Having the certainty of a new landowner committed to the programme as much as to subdivision potential would give the couple the opportunity to expand the programme, and become something of a community and environmental hub.
Those plans include 10ha of market garden and livestock food production and three hectares of wetland preservation, engaging with local iwi and community groups to restore and protect the local waterway.
A 25ha native forest regeneration programme would include removal of invasive plant species, pest control and seedling planting.
For the Charity, it is a piece of “back to the future” with the old woolshed on the farm which used to be a focus for community dances and gatherings, again fulfilling that role.
The couple already utilise it in the school programme, with children cooking up produce they have grown and understanding the links between socialising, food and farming.
Trust advisor and parent Deborah Crowe’s son Mani was one of the early after school programme candidates.
She attributes Teacher in the Paddock with getting her son connected with the things she took for granted growing up in rural Southland.
“I felt that given I would pay for something like swimming lessons, the after school programme here was no different, I was paying for my son to have farm and outdoor lessons which are just as valuable,” she said.
