From the Waikato Times 23 March 2007:

Feeding families on community kindness

When Glenys Parton's children were born, she and her family were fed for two weeks by friends and extended family in Hamilton.

Says Parton, as she recalls this generosity: "I didn't cook at all, food just arrived. Often there was enough left over for lunch. I was so well supported; no wonder I did exceptionally well as a new mother."

Parton's two children are now aged 18 and 16, and the idea she tucked away at the time of their births has now come to fruition.

Next Friday night she launches her community project called Plate Forward, a tasty idea based on a kindly, old-fashioned concept, and 150 squeaky new ceramic dishes begging to be filled.

Plate Forward harks back to Parton's rural childhood in south Taranaki, in the small "blink and you miss it" district of Matapu, where neighbours looked after each other during births, deaths, stress, loneliness and illness.

Women would come bearing plates of good food in times of need, knowing they'd one day receive similar help themselves.

"Food is the thing that glues communities together," says Parton. "It's just the stuff we did, and we've kind of lost that."

She acknowledges that doing a good turn for someone is deeply rooted in New Zealand culture, and there are still people in urban neighbourhoods who provide comfort food for each other. But, as communities become more fragmented, she reckons it needs a helping hand in the form of Plate Forward.

At the Friday launch in the Southwell School dining-room, more than 100 invited guests will be given an empty Plate Forward dish. There will be a demonstration of recipes they could fill it with, and they'll be encouraged to cook a meal for someone in need.

The idea is that the recipient will either return the plate or, if they can, they will fill it with a lasagne, apple crumble, chicken bake or similar, and pass it on to someone else. No money changes hands, just a generous serving of goodwill.

Parton is a trustee of Parents Place Charitable Trust, a Hamilton resource centre for parenting and childbirth education groups; Parents Place has helped fund Plate Forward, which has cost $5000-$6000 to set up. This includes buying the plates and establishing a website, www.plateforward.org.nz

The website will be operating after the Friday launch, and has recipes and suggestions for extra help such as housework and gardening that people might appreciate.

Parton would like to see her brainchild spread through the country, perhaps picked up by groups such as Age Concern and Plunket.

Apart from the set-up cost expenses are minimal, and Parton points out you don't have to have a Plate Forward dish to take part. You can use your own container or a tinfoil pack.

Parton hopes the arrangement will take on a life of its own, and the plates will make their way through untold households. If she can get funding, she'd like to release 150 new ones annually into the community.

With the prominent Plate Forward logo on the bottom, it would be hard to miss if you had such a dish in your kitchen cupboard.

Parton thinks people will feel motivated to pass it on with a nice meal. "They (the dishes) belong to the community. Goodness knows where they will end up."