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The Common Unity Project Aotearoa: A Social Enterprise Business Incubator On Waiwhetu Road in Lower Hutt, a city of 100,000 people north of Wellington, New Zealand, the headquarters of the Common Unity Project Aotearoa is a flurry of activity. Klaled Al Jouja, a Syrian refugee who recently moved to Lower Hutt, grows plants for sale in a nursery outside the large building, which used to be a plaster factory. From a free sharing shelf nearby, visitors can collect donated food, clothing, and household items. In a converted shipping container nearby, volunteers and staff cook healthy meals for the community in a solar-powered commercial grade kitchen. Most of the produce grown for the meals comes from the organisation's organic gardens that are scattered around Lower Hutt as part of its Urban Kai farms project. Inside the former factory building (called "The ReMakery"), small children play while their caregivers shop at a low-cost, member-owned, package-free grocery store. Upstairs, local residents learn how to sew items such as clothes and shopping bags. Volunteers fix bikes for local children in a space out back. For the price of a koha (donation), people can purchase hot drinks and choose cakes, dessert slices, and savouries from a cabinet in a caf inside the building. Julia Milne, a Lower Hutt resident, established the Common Unity Project Aotearoa as a pilot project in 2012 at nearby Epuni School. Along with volunteers, Milne dug up an old soccer field to create an urban farm at the school. Vegetables and fruit from the one-acre farm fed the school's children for their lunches. Any leftover food went back into the surrounding community, where many families do not have enough food to eat (Edwards, 2012). The students helped grow the produce in the large garden and adjoining orchard. Milne started the Common Unity Project Aotearoa with the vision to see local residents create a society where everyone thrives and is self-sufficient. Common Unity is a "social enterprise business incubator" that provides struggling local families and people with food, job skills, social support, and other services (Boyack, 2017). Sustainability, self-sufficiency, and community are principles that guide the organisation. Says Milne, "The core belief is that by sharing, and by using materials that are surplus or usually thrown away, we can create community learning, work experience, and food" (Edwards, 2012). The Common Unity Project Aotearoa has grown from the Epuni School site to the former factory across the street on Waiwhetu Road. Its location in Epuni, and proximity to the suburbs of Naenae and Taita, is important because these areas have been hit hard by poverty and homelessness in recent years. Milne said lack of money was the biggest barrier many people dealt with everyday (Boyack, 2017). The Common Unity Project Aotearoa's growth since 2012 reflects how it is responding to acute needs in the local community around housing, access to healthy food, poverty, social isolation, and employment.

Responding to Poverty and Homelessness in Lower Hutt, New Zealand The Common Unity Project Aotearoa's mission is crucially needed in a city with sharply increasing challenges around housing and poverty in recent years. But first, the organisation needed to understand its macro- and micro- marketing environments in order to effectively reach its target market segments and market its services. One might associate homelessness with large New Zealand cities such as Auckland. However, in the past few years, New Zealand's housing shortage, increased living costs, and other factors have contributed to the country's rising rates in poverty and homelessness. The result of this situation is that homeless people, as well as people with unstable rental housing, now increasingly live in regional cities around New Zealand such as Lower Hutt. In February 2019, 367 households were on the waiting list for social housing in Lower Hutt (Boyack, 2019). Government grants for emergency housing in Lower Hutt hotels or motels increased from 234 in March 2017 to 719 in December 2018 (Boyack, 2019). In the meantime, the number of people begging near Lower Hutt's shops, living in improvised shelter such as cars, and sleeping rough in tents and garages is increasing (McKay, 2019). In June 2019, the New Zealand Herald called Lower Hutt's homelessness situation "an invisible crisis" that impacts "children, the elderly, the employed and unemployed and people in between" (McKay, 2019). To address homelessness, earlier in 2019, the Lower Hutt City Council approved spending nearly $1.5 million to reduce homelessness over the next three years (McKay, 2019). Experts say the causes of homelessness in Lower Hutt are complex and need targeted solutions. John Pritchard, Hutt City research and policy advisor, says Wellington city's reduced housing stock has caused people to move to Lower Hutt to find cheaper rental and home prices. This population shift has put pressure on Lower Hutt's housing supply (Boyack, 2019). In addition, other factors such as mental health issues, high rents, family violence, and job pay not keeping pace with living costs contribute to homelessness, poverty, and people's ability to purchase food (Boyack, 2019). Pritchard says, "'The underlying causes of homelessness are structural poverty, a lack of affordable housing, inequality and government policy'" (Boyack, 2019).

Common Unity Project Aotearoa's Community Outreach The Common Unity Project Aotearoa is confronting Lower Hutt's challenges around housing, food, and poverty head-on. The organisation joins other charities such as the Salvation Army in Lower Hutt that are trying to tackle these issues. Many charitable organisations compete for government funding and public donations. The Common Unity Project Aotearoa's focus on sustainability sets it apartboth in its daily activities such as the organic gardens and off-the-grid kitchen, and in its sustainable marketing focus. From its beginnings as an urban garden at Epuni School, the Common Unity Project Aotearoa now partners with five schools, a marae, and a local women's refuge as it supplies more than 600 meals a week for the community using produce from its Urban Kai farms (Common Unity Project Aotearoa, 2019). The organisation's creation of The ReMarkery in the old factory building was a crucial turning point in its community outreach. In 2017, Julia Milne and a group of volunteers spent three months converting the building into the Common Unity's hub. The space now supports more than 18 enterprises (and counting) that range from a honey collective to its package-free grocery store (Boyack, 2017). Among the organisation's many activities, local residents can check out a bike from the bike library. A weekly knitting group, One Small Piece, teaches Epuni School children how to knit a square and create a blanket once they have enough squares. After the blanket is finished, the children get to take their blankets home (Common Unity Project Aotearoa, 2019b). Self-sufficiency and creative skill sharing are essential to the organisation's mission. With the Unity Exchange, people "with one skill set can bank or trade hours of work for equal hours of work in another skill set, instead of paying or being paid" (Common Unity Project Aotearoa, 2019d). For example, someone who knows how to repair cars can bank an hour, or exchange it for an hour's work from someone who repairs fences. This type of system also builds social networks as people help one another. One of the Common Unity Project Aotearoa's goals is to reduce waste by reusing items that would normally be discarded into landfills. To help achieve this goal, the Sew Good Cooperative runs waste-free living sewing classes. Sewers at all levels learn how to make shopping bags, food wraps, and other items from discarded fabric (Common Unity Project Aotearoa, 2019c). Activities such as the sewing classes also help get the word out about the organisation to the community. Outside the main building, the off-the-grid community kitchen cooks meals for community groups, area schools, or just for anyone needing a meal. The meals' ingredients largely come from 15 micro-farms, called Urban Kai farms, that are based at the nearby Rimutaka Prison, on local Housing New Zealand properties, and the Epuni youth justice facility (Boyack, 2017). The Urban Kai project has produced more than 9 tonnes of fruit and vegetables over the past two years (Common Unity Project Aotearoa, 2019). Any surplus produce is sold for a low cost in the grocery co-operative. In addition, visitors can purchase meals from its on-site cafe. For every meal sold, the organisation gifts a meal to local school children. Common Unity's Beeple Honey Collective returned more than 100kgs of honey back to area families and children in 2015 (Boyack, 2016). The hives are hosted in local backyards and community apiaries, and trains and employs local dads (Bee Daddies) to maintain them. Local residents can also purchase jars of the honey in the grocery co-op (Common Unity Project Aotearoa, 2019e). Among the organisation's many other activities, short courses for the community cover topics such as cooking on a budget, saving seeds, making compost, and many other topics. Says Milne, The organisation seeks to create "authentic change where it's needed most-in community" (Common Unity Project Aotearoa, 2019a). A visit to the project's headquarters on many days reflects its community mission. The spaces inside and outside the old factory building, which has been lovingly renovated by volunteers, are filled with the organisation's staff, volunteers, and community members. People shop at the grocery store, cook in the community kitchen, fix bikes, sew items from discarded fabric, make art from repurposed items, and socialise. These are busy, productive, and joyful spaces. Indeed, says Milne, "We have learnt, as a community, we not only can feed ourselves using the assets of our local region, we can respond to our needs with joy and equal participation" (Common Unity Project Aotearoa, 2019).

Plans for Further Expansion Through Sustainable Marketing The Common Unity Project Aotearoa receives financial support from community members and organisations such as the Hutt City Council, the Lottery Grants Board, Pub Charity, Wellington Children's Foundation, and many other organisations. However, as the organisation looks to 2020 and beyond, it plans to further expand with the help of donations. It is therefore using marketing to increase community awareness of its services, which it hopes will translate into financial support and other types of donations, such as volunteers and equipment to run its in-house initiatives. The Common Unity Project Aotearoa has a website, which is constantly updated and reflects the multicultural make-up of the community. The organisation maintains an active social media presence on different platforms such as Facebook. It publishes videos that explain its activities on Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/375798917. To further build public awareness, the organisation's leadership (such as Julia Milne) regularly give interviews to local and national media. More recently, the Common Unity Project Aotearoa recently launched an end-ofyear fundraising campaign to benefit the Urban Kai farms project. Donors can purchase "Fund a Farm" gift farms and/or make regular donations for funding the Urban Farm manager's salary (Common Unity Project Aotearoa, 2019). The fundraising could double the amount of meals produced each week from 600 to 1,200 for the local Women's Refuge, Hutt Valley schools, and local marae. Common Unity Project Aotearoa's mission is to "ensure Every Child has a Village." To achieve this mission, the organisation's is tackling Lower Hutt's increasing challenges around access to food, high housing and rental prices, poverty, and homelessness. The Common Unity Project Aotearoa is a great example of how a charity can use sustainable marketing to support its outreach and find solutions for the community.