Ahipara teen creating community through market initiative

Ahipara teen, Lennox Goodhue-Wikitera is making his mark in the Far North entrepreneurial space. Photo/ Lennox Goodhue-Wikitera.

While other 15-year-olds watch TikTok, one Far North teen is organising community events and running his own photography business.

Ahipara's Lennox Goodhue-Wikitera (Te Rarawa) is a rising star, who since early 2022, has been bringing his community together by holding market days to help promote and support local businesses.

Goodhue Wikitera's market day events are run along Ahipara's foreshore and were first started in January when Ahipara Coastal Patrol was looking to raise funds to help support their organisation.

The rangatahi (youth) decided to make the call-out to local businesses to help support the fundraiser and organised everything from promoting the event to ensuring all stall holders were informed about how the event would go.

Goodhue-Wikitera said the response to the event had gone so well he decided to hold a few more market days to keep up the momentum.

"We had quite a few people hold their stalls at the first market day event, so I thought why not do it again," he said.

"I don't have any experience in holding events, so I just winged it, but it's been good to get the local businesses together and to meet lots of cool people and see them support their local businesses who have been doing it tough due to Covid-19.

"I've mainly promoted it over Facebook which has had a great response and it's been good to help stallholders make some extra money and for the community to get behind them."

Goodhue-Wikitera is also a small business owner who started his own photography business, Ahiparadise, two years ago.

What started out as a hobby sharing landscape portraits of Ahipara online turned into a demand for his shots and eventually Goodhue decided to turn his images into a calendar.

Since then he said he had sold around 1000 calendars which sell for $15 a pop and also designs mugs and other paraphernalia.

Goodhue-Wikitera said his aunty Noeleen Robson was a big influence on his pathway to success.

"She saw my potential and helped me start my business with a start-up loan to purchase stock and then mentored and taught me how to successfully run my own business and manage money," Goodhue-Wikitera said.

"Her push-start was what really helped me out in my journey."

If that wasn't enough, the entrepreneur-in-making is currently campaigning to bring back a canteen at his school and is also organising special Matariki art exhibition at the Ahipara Golf Club where local artists can showcase their work.

Reuben Taipari has known Goodhue-Wikitera for some time and contacted the Northland Age to share the teen's story.

Taipari said he was inspired by Goodhue-Wikitera's maturity and drive and felt he was one to watch in the entrepreneurial space.

"We like him around here and without putting too much pressure on him, I believe he is going to go places," Taipari said.

Reuben Taipari says Lennox is an inspiration to the community. Photo/ Lennox Goodhue-Wikitera

"Lennox has a good attitude and as a young person in Ahipara, it just shows you we have a good little community with lots of good young people around.

"I have a lot of faith in our youth coming through and it's our job to support our next generation in any way we can to help them succeed."

Goodhue-Wikitera is studying business studies at school, but according to mum Kelly Goodhue, he'd always been business-minded.

"He's always been a hands-on type of kid and always into something, be it rongoa classes or things like this market day," she said.

"I'm very lucky I don't have to worry about him being distracted by negative influences and that he can put his entrepreneurial skills to good use.

"He's also quite mature and has a lot of confidence and has the ability to use his initiative - "I'm very proud of him."

Goodhue-Wikitera said while he wasn't quite sure where life would take him post-school, he did hope he ended up staying in Ahipara.

In terms of his market day events, those will be put on hold over winter but would be up and running again once summer kicked in, with the plan to run one every weekend.