Free oranges being distributed from a truck on Gisborne's main street. Photo: Supplied / Toha
It's a well-known quirk of the Kiwi character that we don't like to blow our own trumpets.
But with so many good deeds and donations flying around the East Coast in the wake of Cyclone Gabrielle, one organisation saw the need to keep track.
Toha, a company with offices around New Zealand, trades in data with the intention of putting a value on climate action.
Out of its Gisborne office, the East Coast Exchange was born.
Residents awoke just over two weeks ago on 14 February to find themselves without cellphone reception or internet and intermittent power supply.
Some places had it worse still, waist deep in silt, their homes flooded and filthy, and their belongings scattered down the street.
East Coast Exchange project lead Renee Raroa said their east coast team began to ask how they could best put their expertise to use.
"Essentially the crew on the ground here ran around to food suppliers, where that food might have otherwise gone to waste," she said.
"We had drivers come in, and trucks donated to help move some goods around, and we kept a record."
Leaderbrand produce being transported to Supergrans following Cyclone Gabrielle. Photo: Supplied / Toha
Raroa said they began to see the value in keeping a log of the good deeds done by the community, too.
Product manager Izzi Morris said it was about valuing work and contributions on the ground, before the funding flowed.
"By having a public record of all of these different types of contributions, when the funding does come in, it means it can flow direct to the people taking the action, and it's really clear who's getting the funding and what action they've taken."
Over the following two weeks, they built a website where people can log actions and donations.
By the evening of 2 March, 68 had been logged.
"People can record their contributions [and] can earn contribution points, which they can choose just to donate back to the community, which a lot of people are choosing to do," she said.
"Or, if we have sufficient funding coming into the network, they may be able to exchange them out for cash - but it's all dependent on our ability to really prove that these contributions are happening."
Morris stressed that the exchange of points for cash wasn't guaranteed. If there was money available, thanks to donations from the public into the contributions fund, then those who logged jobs would be paid out at an approximate rate of $1 per point, starting with the earliest jobs logged.
There had been 35,000 points earned or donated by 2 March and almost $15,000 of funding received.
Actions and donations all had to be verified, with pictures and contact details needed to log an entry.
But the point wasn't only to reimburse people for good deeds.
Raroa said this dataset would allow future funding to be distributed to those who could best put it to use.
Right now, financial donations came from the public.
"But in a longer term sense, we hope that larger funding pools, whether it's philanthropic or government departments or other spaces, will see this as a way to distribute their funds to the frontline."
The cleanup after Cyclone Gabrielle under way in Te Karaka, north-west of Gisborne, on 20 February. Tradies have been working for free in the township to help their community. Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
Underpinning the exchange was a drive for cleaner, climate-friendly solutions.
For now, people could log jobs in the categories of food, labour and transport.
The team hoped to soon make it possible to gain points for resilience projects, such as increasing urban water storage, making homes less prone to flooding, and planting backyard nurseries or slopes to prevent erosion.
By valuing actions that are good for the planet, and for the community, Toha hopes to encourage local efforts in the direction of a more resilient east coast.
