On this page you can learn about the History, our Philosophyand about some of our people.

Te Whangai was established as a Charitable Trust in September, 2007 by the Daltons inspired about through one of their children, Leigh who was passionate about the environment and helping others. It was through her that Gary and Adrienne first got involved in this type of work. They employed a Taskforce Green team to help them restore an area of native bush on their farm. Gary and Adrienne worked side by side with the Taskforce crew, weeding, planting and fencing. They got to know them as people, and quickly became involved in their lives, often acting as advocates for them, cheering them on when they found jobs or met other success. As Adrienne recalls, “They had a lot of ability but they had no one to advocate for them or believe in their ability. Because of their situation they were in a rut and a cycle that wasn’t helping them to break habits or even get a job.

Around this time Leigh was killed in a car accident at around the same time Work and Income from Thames approached Adrienne and Gary to continue the relationship, they saw an opportunity to set up Te Whangai Trust and honour Leigh’s commitment to people and the environment in this way. “We feel her spirit here in many ways.”

Long time friend Bill Ward was asked to help set up the nursery. His extensive knowledge of plants and nurseries management was invaluable. In their first 18 months Te Whangai Trust has participated in the Sustainable Business Awards receiving a Judges Commendation in 2008 and winning the Not-for-Profit category and the overall Waikato Sustainable Business in 2009.  One of Te Whangai’s employees who now volunteers part-time won the Franklin Finest People for Employee of the year 2008.

Adrienne Dalton won Franklin’s Finest Person - Community Worker of the Year 2009 and the main overall award of Finest Person 2009.

Adrienne Dalton has worked for many years as a special needs teacher, 25years on Education boards and has extensive judicial work and serves in the courts, she is also a Justice of the Peace.

Gary Dalton is a 5th generation farmer in the Miranda area. His family arrived in the 1860s. He has worked with International youth trainees in agriculture.

Gary and Adrienne began farming in the 1970s, and raised four children on their dairy farm. Both Adrienne and Gary have long been committed to protecting and restoring ecological areas on their farm, which borders Miranda's seabird coast. The Daltons saw that there was a huge social and ecological void in the community. They realised that it is not people’s lack of ability or the disabilities caused by illnesses and circumstances that creates social problems, but society’s inability to harness the talents people have.

Advisory Board

Annie Perkins

International Environmental and Life skills Consultant Groundwork Associates Ltd

Peter Rogers

Partner at Finn & Partner Chartered Accountants

Jack Hobbs

Authour, Broadcaster and Curator / Manager of Auckland Botanic Gardens

Amy Thompson

Business Director and Iwi Representative

To fulfill our Mission:

Te Whangai Trust is a family for life we will serve each other by training, up skilling and nurturing each other, advocating for each other with agencies, and sharing basic life, work and social skills, involving family and Whanau.

We will serve the community by promoting employment.

We will serve the ecology by planting and propagating native trees.

We will serve the economy by selling native plants to tax payer and government agencies on a not for profit basis.

We will serve the country by preserving the uniqueness of our plant resources, reducing NZ’s carbon footprint, and nurturing vulnerable people and our environment.

Our Philosophy:

We state that: “Our Mission is to  create a sustainable, ecological, social and educational business that supports and trains disadvantaged people who find it challenging to enter the labour market; By empowering them to break habits changing the generation cycle and thus creating a better life for themselves and future generations”

 We hope this will inspire other organisations to include social and environmental performance as well as good economic sense”

What are we doing about it ourselves?

The short answer is that Te Whangai Trust has internal procedures in place and we are looking at our Sustainability statement to cover the environmental aspects of our operations such as; waste, water, energy and transport these with our social work we already deliver.

At Te Whangai, we are passionate about people, plants and the environment. These passions are reflected in our thinking: Our underlying principles are no one should be paid a benefit without contributing to society, no matter how small their contribution. We believe in hand-ups, not handouts. We believe there is no free ride in life, and whatever you want you have to work for it.

When taxpayer’s monies are paid to beneficiaries, addictions and dependency are reinforced. People’s misery becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. Rate payer’s monies are spent on repairing the consequences of resulting anti social behaviour and family dysfunction.

Once Te Whangai members face their issues, develop self esteem, and become employed the value of independence reduces the reliance and dependency on welfare. Having a sense of belonging to a worthwhile effort develops roots in the company and communities. This has a positive example to their children and other members of the Whanau.

The Te Whangai trust philosophy converting tax generated social spending (welfare and unemployment payments, court fines) into environmental investment. It is about people, not money. It’s about changing our community.

Te Whangai is a community led initiative. We believe the social and environment sectors can help each other. It’s not people's disadvantages that are the problem, it’s our community’s inability to harness everyone's abilities – to focus on what they can do, and do well!

The need for mental health and related social services is reduced because working with nature is therapeutic and realigns many of our members with their core cultural values and beliefs. We believe it helps people deal with family violence by getting out of the house and spend time doing productive work, it gives family tensions a chance to settle, and gives opportunity to discuss problems with third parties. By talking with our supervisors or other volunteer counsellors we can assist conflicts from arising and hopefully resolve issues before resulting in violence.

Anecdotal evidence points to higher employment and reduced demand on mental health services as a result. Our communities are safer, because when you work alongside someone, you know what his or her triggers are and you are able to help defuse these situations before they become crisis situations in the community.

Our economy must be responsive to change, as the welfare system and push for environmental compliance will be unsustainable for the industries underpinning our economy.

The planting of native trees and plants ensure that our native biodiversity is preserved for future generations. This will become a huge economic resource for New Zealand. Because of the density of the populations of other countries, they are not able to allow the retirement of such large tracts of land for continued reforestation and logging.

There are far reaching economic and social benefits for nurturing an at-risk sector of our community - when community and government jointly take responsibility. We believe we have found the key to our social and environmental dilemma. Every dollar spent on Te Whangai products or services contributes a dollar to the environment, is a dollar less spent on welfare or unemployment, and has significant tangible and intangible benefits. 

Here is some of the success stories of Te Whangai’s members:

Some of their stories:

Karl Tapp spent about five months at Te Whangai, then moved on to a job with Jim Banner of DB Builders; he is currently working on a $4 million house the firm is building near coastal Kaiaua. Banner says Karl Tapp “came as a labourer, and now he’s one of the commanders-in-chief, he’s excellent, just the best in the book, the hardest-working man I’ve ever employed over 50 years.”  Source: Eco-Vision blooms in Miranda. Waikato Times Magazine, August 2, 2008.

Scott Oswald came to Te Whangai Trust in April 2008. In mid May, Scott was driving with friends when he saw a car upside down in a creek in Kaiaua. He pulled over and, despite his fear of water, went into the creek to try to free the driver from the car. His friends left him there. Scott was unable to free the man on his own, and with help from a passing motorist’s vehicle they were able to pull the front of the car out of the water, but it was too late for the 76-year-old driver. Scott later told his workmates that before coming to Te Whangai Trust, he would probably have driven on with his friends. The incident was reported in the Franklin County News.

 Donna's first job aged 40

Sandy Simmons who has been with Te Whangai from the beginning, was awarded Franklin Employee of the Year 2008.