Last week NZHIT in association with Umbrella hosted a fantastic online chat with David Downs.

David mentioned the work he is doing with SOS Cafe and a number of you have asked for more information so here is the web page. Lets keep NZ going forward!

Buy a voucher now, redeem from your local later. A not-for-profit initiative supporting local businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic.

We are David, Joyce and Naadei. Co-founders of SOS Business (previously known as SOS Cafe).

Like everyone, we felt shocked and a bit helpless when it was announced that NZ would go into level 4 lockdown, and thought about the hundreds of cafés, small businesses etc who would suffer.

Our local businesses add so much colour and culture to our suburbs, it's now our turn to give back.

We whipped up this website that will allow us to act as agents for businesses who don’t have the ability to take vouchers a way to do that, and to link to those that can. Many customers are loyal to their local coffee shop or restaurant / bar, and want to help. Now they can – if you used to buy a coffee and a muffin every day, then buy a voucher every day instead (or a whole lot!) and give these café’s a fighting chance.

We don't make any money off this - in fact it's costing us a bit to do it, and taking a fair amount of time. We are happy to do it to help out, but please bear that in mind! We also have a growing group of volunteers helping us out, which is helping.

"Years ago when I was young and foolish I set up a bar, so I know how hard it is to run a hospo business and how reliant you are on customers." - David Downs

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