Business for Good: How Your Everkind Purchase Is Helping Nourish Taranaki Families

💛 The kind of world we want to live in

We believe the things we buy can be about more than the things we take home.

Every purchase is a choice. A small vote for the kind of businesses we want to exist, the values we want to support and, ultimately, the kind of world we want to live in.

And that’s something we love about the Everkind community. You care about what you put on your body, but your care doesn’t stop there. You care about your families, your communities and the beautiful world we share.

It’s why giving has always been built into Everkind.

Through our People Kind promise, we give 2% of every purchase to support people and communities doing good in the world. So when you choose Everkind, part of that purchase goes somewhere else too.

Recently, it went somewhere pretty special.

🌈 Meet Eat a Rainbow Foundation

We chose to support Eat a Rainbow Foundation, a Taranaki charity with a beautifully simple mission: helping vulnerable families nourish the people they love.

The foundation creates healthy, wholesome, ready-made meals using fresh, locally sourced ingredients, with meals developed in collaboration with nutritionists. They’re frozen and distributed through partner charities who know which families need them most.

The idea began during the 2020 lockdown, when professionally trained chefs Momo Martin and Michelle Hartley saw families in their community struggling and started cooking.

What began as a response to one difficult moment grew into something much bigger. Today, Eat a Rainbow Foundation provides nourishing meals for people facing some of life's hardest moments, including families experiencing housing crises, carers supporting tamariki through cancer treatment and families whose children are in hospital.

Sometimes care looks like something very simple.

A meal in the freezer. Dinner taken care of. One less thing to think about when there is already far too much to carry.

🍲 So, we made 1,000 meals together

Through the support of our Everkind community, we sponsored 1,000 Eat a Rainbow Foundation meals: 500 free-range chicken curries and 500 vegan dahls.

Then we rolled up our sleeves and joined the Eat a Rainbow team in Taranaki to help bring them to life.

There was chopping. Stirring. Portioning. Sealing. Stickering. Packing. And a lot of meals lined up on the bench.

But this story isn't really about making 1,000 meals.

It's about showing up for people in the moments they need it most.

🍲 Eat a Rainbow Foundation’s Vegan Pumpkin Dahl Recipe

One of the meals we helped make was Eat a Rainbow Foundation’s Pumpkin Dahl, and it was too good not to share.

It’s warm, nourishing, packed with flavour and exactly the kind of food you want waiting for you at the end of a long day. So the lovely team at Eat a Rainbow Foundation have shared their recipe with us, so you can make it at home too.

Pumpkin Dahl (Gluten Free + Vegan)

Ingredients

1 brown onion, finely diced
6 cloves garlic, crushed
2cm fresh ginger, grated or finely diced
Olive oil
3/4 stalk fresh curry leaves, leaves only
2 Tbsp black mustard seeds
1 can crushed tomatoes
8 whole cardamom pods, lightly crushed
1 cinnamon stick
1 whole dried chilli or 1 tsp chilli flakes
2 star anise
2 Tbsp ground cumin
2 Tbsp ground coriander
1 Tbsp turmeric
2 Tbsp vegetable stock powder
375g split red lentils, washed
500g pumpkin, diced
1 can coconut cream

Method

In a deep pot, heat a little olive oil and add the onion, garlic and ginger. Sauté gently until the onion becomes translucent.

Add the curry leaves and black mustard seeds and cook for a couple of minutes. Add the tomatoes, spices and vegetable stock powder.

Once fragrant, add the lentils, pumpkin and 6 cups of water.

Cook over medium heat until the lentils and pumpkin are soft and cooked through, around 20 minutes at a medium simmer. Use a whisk to gently break down the pumpkin and create a smooth, creamy dahl.

Stir through the coconut cream and season if needed.

Ladle into bowls, top with fresh coriander and enjoy.

Comfort food at its best. 🙌

Recipe shared with us by Eat a Rainbow Foundation.

🏡 Where the meals are going

Many of the meals are supporting the work of Roderique Hope Trust, a Taranaki charity working alongside individuals and whānau experiencing homelessness and housing insecurity.

Their work goes well beyond providing somewhere to stay. Roderique Hope Trust provides transitional housing and practical, wraparound support designed to help whānau overcome barriers, build stability and move towards safe, sustainable long-term housing.

When a family is facing a housing crisis, there can be an enormous amount to navigate. Having nourishing food ready in the freezer might seem like a small thing from the outside.

But sometimes the small things are exactly what help.

🌱 Business can be a force for good

We don't believe doing good should be something a business does once it's successful enough, big enough or profitable enough.

We believe it can simply be part of how business is done.

That's why our commitment is based on revenue, not profit. Through our People Kind promise, 2% of every Everkind purchase is given to causes and organisations doing meaningful work.

It means when you restock your deodorant, wash your hair or take care of your skin, you're also helping us support people doing extraordinary things in their communities.

Your everyday purchase becomes part of something bigger.

💛 A little thank you from us

To celebrate what we’ve made possible together, we’d love to give you 10% off your next Everkind order with code TOGETHER10.

Consider it our thank you for choosing to spend your dollars with a business that wants to do a little more good with them.

Go treat yourself!

🌸 And this bit belongs to you

We could write a cheque for $7,000 and tell you what we did.

But that wouldn’t really tell the story. Because every dollar we give through People Kind starts with someone choosing Everkind. You!

So those 1,000 meals belong to every person who has shopped with us, told a friend about us, come back for another order or chosen to spend their money with a business whose values reflect their own.

This is what conscious spending can look like. A purchase. A choice. A nourishing meal waiting for a family going through a difficult time.

Every purchase helps shape the kind of world we want to live in. Thank you for choosing one with a little more care.

And we’re just getting started.