From tired to jazzed up: Gisborne’s main street’s spring clean

Three local volunteers are facilitating a clean-up of Gisborne's main street on Sunday, and the public are invited to join them.

"We want to change the conversation around Gisborne's CBD," say former councillor of 10 years Meredith Akuhata-Brown, husband and furniture restorer Jason Akuhata-Brown and real estate agent Bronwyn Kay.

"Gisborne's looking tired, so we thought 'let's take the initiative and get it all jazzed up'."

The event has brought "a whole bunch of the community together", including multiple generations, who will be creating art pieces, they said. This includes a mural by youth group Ka Timata on plywood at the end of the ANZ building.

The artwork will be coordinated by local musician Quinn Eru (known as One Three Official), and the kids have been practising different designs.

"They're going to represent their rōpū (group)," youth group founder Freddy Bishop said. "They're going to form Ka Timata (the name of their kaupapa) on the mural."

The group are also considering drawing cartoon characters representing each of them.

"So that might be a kererū, a bird, because they want to fly and chase goals."

The mural will say proudly to 'Gizzy' that "we're here", Bishop said, who had many projects planned for the kids.

The spring clean was being done in partnership with Gisborne District Council, contractors and local businesses, who donated trailer-loads of paint, spray cans, plywood, paint rollers, scrubbing brushes and rubbish bags.

The council offered to waterblast the streets and take care of the accumulated trash.

Council liveable communities acting director Kerry Hudson said they waterblasted the CBD as part of routine maintenance work, and saw this clean-up as a great opportunity to support the community.

"It is great to see the community also taking pride in our places," she said.

The working bee starts at 3pm (meeting at 111 Gladstone Rd) and will go until 5pm. People were welcome to head along and help sweep the streets, clean windows or pick up a paintbrush and assist with a local artist's mural.

Community events group Gizzy Local connected organisers with local artists and the youth group.

With an influx of cruise ship visitors, holidaymakers and festival-goers over summer, organisers wanted to inject "a vibe" into the CBD. It was also a positive response to negative news articles and comments people have made about the state of the CBD.

"We're saying as a community, we get behind Gisborne and do something about it rather than just talk about it," Kay said.

Kay said the quote "the forest can only regenerate once the leaves have rotted" reminded her of what they were trying to achieve.

"You cannot regrow until something has kind of got out from the ground up. We're starting again."

The group were also keen to build momentum that encouraged people to feel pride and ownership over their city, which they hoped would continue long after the event.

Gisborne had been through a lot in recent years and everyone was feeling fatigued, Akuhata-Brown said

"This year has been a year of tiredness based on recovery after cyclones and weather events out of our control. Our region needs to be reminded underneath all that is a new growth."

The team thought spring cleaning was perfect because it was about "the vibrancy of new growth and the fresh newness of colour".

They also wanted to remind people they could create the Gisborne they wanted to see.

"2025, revive!"

LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.