Dave "Buttabean" Letele walks us through the food parcels his organisation BBM Motivation is giving out to the community through Lockdown. Video / Supplied
When Dave "Buttabean" Letele heard children were going through rubbish bins looking for food during lockdown he dropped everything to mask up and head out with his ute filled with meals and healthy snacks.
The former professional boxer, well-known for his free boot-camps and motivational programmes, has been "flat-out" during lockdown getting help to those in need.
Hungry children, isolated elderly, solo parents and families who have "slipped through the cracks" of New Zealand's welfare system are his focus.
In the first 24 hours of lockdown, Buttabean HQ in Manukau City handed out close to 2500 meals.
"A lot of what we see is heartwrenching. It's people who have exhausted their food grants and don't know where else to turn.
"People say 'why don't these people get a job?' but people don't understand what it is like to be at the bottom and just have your head above the water anyway and then lockdown comes."
Dave Letele and his BBM Foodbank team provide fresh fruit, vegetables, and meat to those struggling through lockdown. Photo / Supplied
Last week Letele took a trailer of food to several families in emergency housing.
"We had fresh fruit and veges for them and frozen meals the parents can heat up in the small kitchens.
"While I am there I am taking down numbers so we can connect people with the Ministry of Social Development."
Letele is today's Lockdown Hero.
He has connected with elderly people hungry at home with no transport, stressed families with children sick in hospital, and families who have been declined by Work and Income NZ.
Letele won't give details about the children going through rubbish bins because he wants people to know they are safe coming to him for help.
"It's important that people know this is happening in New Zealand but what is more important is that the children got food and their families got assistance.
Dave 'Buttabean' Letele (right) works with police to get food parcels to those in the community who need them. Photo / Supplied
"I want people to know they can come to me without judgment."
Letele is running a socially distanced drive-thru food bank from his BBM headquarters in Manukau, South Auckland.
Boxes of fresh and frozen meat, vegetables, essential dry foods, and plant-based goodies were going out every day.
He said he was able to give at such a large scale because of the corporate support he had drummed up since New Zealand's first lockdown.
Big corporations such as Foodstuffs, Pak'nSave Manukau, New World in Ormiston, Southmall and Metro, Seeka Fresh, Auckland Meat Processors, NZ Food Network, Head Quarters Bar, and Mad Butcher were regular donors of fresh and frozen food.
"For it to work it needs to be Government, business, and community groups working together.
"We get good assistance from MSD and the New Zealand Food Network, but it is always a hustle though."
Those who sing Letele's praises say it's his ability to hustle and fight for other's rights that makes him a hero.
He says it's being surrounded by positive people, a good wife, and team.
"I am the one on the news but they are doing the work."
As well as the food drives, Letele is "back on the tools" taking boot camps online during lockdown.
Out of lockdown, BBM runs 33 boot camps attended by up to 150 people every week and is dedicated to improving health outcomes for the Māori and Pacifika communities.
He says his own weight-loss journey, from 210kg to half that, means he can connect and relate to the people he is helping.
"I am trying to keep people connected and exercise is such a good anchor so people can do these online.
"You are not thinking about how crap it is when you are exercising."
