Volunteer
Join one of our projects, connect with the community and learn new skills
Volunteer with us
Join one of our amazing projects and help restore our beautiful wetlands, reduce our food waste and support our community as a volunteer.
Join Our Restoration Team
We are always looking for more helpers to restore our wonderful wetlands. Our team is planting trees, maintaining and re-establishing Waiheke’s natural beauty. We are always looking for help from individuals and corporate groups. Find out more about Love Our Wetlands
Join our Kai Conscious Team
Our Kai Conscious team is made up of food rescuers, cooks, kitchen hands, and our extended whānau of businesses and households that donate food. Whether you are an individual looking to help at our Kai Conscious café or a business wanting to support us, we’d like to hear from you. Find out more about Kai Conscious
Become a Zero Waste hero
We need volunteers to join our Zero Waste team! Come and help us achieve our vision of a waste-free Waiheke.
For example, we assist with No-Single-Use-tableware food stalls at community events, operating dishwashing stations where volunteers wash and redistribute reusable plates, cups and cutlery. You’ll be part of promoting sustainable awareness while engaging with the community, making new connections and having fun! Find out more about the Zero Waste Network Aotearoa.
Join our Wai Care Water team
Caring for the health of Waiheke’s awa / streams is vital to our ecosystem. Our Wai Care scientists closely monitor the water quality to catch and control any polluting elements.
Can you help? If you live near a waterway, you can assist Wai Care by borrowing our equipment, learning to monitor and test the water, and uploading the data onto the Wai Care site. Find out more about Wai Care.
Join our Bike Hub crew
If you are a keen cyclist and know your way around bicycle maintenance and repairs, volunteering with our Bike Hub is a fantastic way to help community to be more proactive in using healthy, sustainable transport. Get the lowdown on what WRT’s Bike Hub does.
Be part of our Composting crowd
Volunteer with The Compost Co, and help in our commitment to reduce waste landfill. As a sustainable business, The Compost Co. can process over 20 tonnes of waste food per year!
Your valued mahi will by sorting compostable material, mixing organic material into compost bins, turning the compost and keeping the site clean and maintained. See our composting tips and learn about The Compost Co.
Fill out our form below if you’re keen to get involved in these or any of our other volunteering opportunities.
WRT volunteers…
- Are passionate about the environment
- Fit our culture of an open, flexible workspace
- Adopt WRT’s cultural statement, code of conduct, and policies
- Have excellent communication and time management skills
Volunteering options
- Food rescuers
- Tree planters
- Community networkers
- Water testers
- Zero Waste eventers
- Kitchen helpers
- Composters
- Bike mechanics
Our volunteers
Geoff Thomas
Geoff has volunteered in the kitchen at the Sustainability Centre since 2019, helping to prepare rescued food for the Kai Conscious Café on Fridays. He brings with him 12 years of experience running a catering company in America. We are lucky to have his skills, resourcefulness and good humour.
Hadas Ore
Hadas volunteered as a Kai Conscious food rescuer and cook for four years before becoming a permanent member of staff. Hadas has a PhD in food anthropology and as a migrant to New Zealand says she knows first-hand how humans can employ food to make themselves and others feel at home. She began her food journey on Waiheke Island by conducting workshops on Middle Eastern home cooking and is now very much part of the WRT whānau.
ANZ
Teams from ANZ regularly venture out to Waiheke Island on corporate volunteering days with WRT. Their combined and ongoing efforts with WRT’s Love Our Wetlands project – involving planting and weeding – make a massive contribution. We look forward to their visits and the fun days out restoring our sensitive wetland ecosystems.
Chardy Parkes
Chardy runs WRT’s Kai Gardens as a volunteer, giving advice about growing food and creating an amazing demonstration garden in the raised vegetable boxes at the front of the Sustainability Centre. Chardy also produces seedlings in the growing tunnel that we sell to the community as part of our food resilience work.
Carys Templer
Carys volunteered with WRT’s Zero Waste events and helped found WRT’s Compost Company. Her infectious enthusiasm for sustainable actions and education has also played a huge part in the development of both the Kai Conscious Café and our Zero Waste projects. She went on to work through the Waiheke Collective as their Marine Coordinator, but remains part of our extended whānau who regularly drops in to say kia ora!