Greening Taupō Day 2024

Greening Taupō Day 2024 was a huge success! Over 2000 people attended, and 3000 native trees were planted! Jane, Rachel and Alana from TCAG dressed in our best green clothes and went down to host a stall. It was such a privilege to be a part of such a large group of people who care for Te Taiao - our environment.

TCAG hosted a competition to re-use plastic lids, as these can no longer be recycled. We had five entries to the competition: An amazing Pirate Ship from Taupō Family Playcentre, this cool Tieke from Tirohanga School (right on theme!) and three entries from My Treehut, with this beautiful forest, heart and leaf.

We are so impressed by the entries! We loved that Tirohanga School was on theme with creating a native bird, we loved the innovation of Taupō Family Playcentre, with a little anchor attached by a string to the pirate ship, and we loved the enthusiasm of My Treehut with 3 collages created! So we have decided to split the prizes three ways, and present a $50 mitre 10 voucher to each of the entrants!

We had some great feed back from Briar at My Treehut who said "We had a great response from our parents sending in bottle caps for us, so you have definitely ignited a passion with in our community and our tamariki which we intend to nurture! Better to keep the bottle caps out of the rubbish!!".

During Greening Taupo Day we also made some communal artworks: a big Taupō Climate sign, and an abstract rainbow. Tamariki stopped by at the gazebo to help us sort the bottle caps that people had collected, and glue them onto the pictures. We had some great discussions about re-using the things we already have, and other actions we can take to protect our climate, including driving less, eating green, and of course planting trees! What an incredible day. A huge thanks to Greening Taupō, Kids Greening Taupō, Project Tongariro and all the sponsors for making this amazing event happen. We can't wait for next year.