Learn how Resene fundraising is helping our communities

Resene runs various campaigns throughout the year, such as the annual Hunger for Colour programme which supports the The Salvation Army.

While you may have used their paint and paint products in your home for decades, you may not know that Resene has also helped the communities you live in for just as long. Resene’s fundraising campaigns assist a wide variety of New Zealand charities, such as Plunket, Children’s Art House, Salvation Army and Ronald McDonald House, as well as supporting up-and-coming artists, street art festivals and many more through various sponsorships.

Read on to find out about some of Resene’s initiatives that may be close to your heart, and how you can help support them throughout the year.

PaintWise community paint

If you have leftover or unwanted paint, you can take the cans and pails to your local Resene PaintWise Collection Centre, located at selected Resene ColorShops. This initiative was created with the aim of reducing the amount of paint sent to landfill. Resene PaintWise trucks visit collection centres to process returned paint, with good-quality unused waterborne paint being gifted to community groups and solventborne paints being sent away for solvent recovery for reuse by other companies. Metal tins and plastic packaging are recycled.

Since its launch in 2004, over six million packs of paint have been returned and more than 250,000 litres of waterborne paint have been gifted to community groups, enough to cover over two million square metres of graffiti. Paint pails have, in the past, been hard to recycle locally, which is why Resene pails are now washed and chipped in a special local facility so they can be used to make 100% recycled Resene paint pails.

In Australia, the Paintback service can be used to take back old paint and paint packaging. PaintCrete is another Resene recycling innovation. The new technology reuses old unwanted paint in concrete manufacturing for commercial application.

In August 2011, PaintWise was accredited by the Ministry for the Environment under the Waste Minimisation Act 2008, and was recertified in 2021. It’s the only paint product stewardship programme accredited in New Zealand. The programme has also won a prestigious Green Ribbon Award. Non-profit community groups wishing to apply for free paint to use on projects such as painting over graffiti can apply here.

Heart Foundation houses

Six times per year, Heart Foundation collaborates with Jennian Homes to build houses that are raffled off, with proceeds going towards stopping families from losing loved ones to heart disease. These lottery homes are built in lifestyle destinations throughout New Zealand and are finished in Resene paints and stains that Resene donates.

You can support the Heart Foundation Lottery by purchasing tickets via their website. Funds raised from the lottery go towards life-saving heart research and heart disease prevention programmes, keeping New Zealand families together for longer.

Take leftover and expired paint to a Resene Paintwise Collection Centre, located at most Resene ColorShops (NZ), where it will be reused and recycled responsibly. See www.resene.com/paintwise for your local collection centre.

Painted in Resene Eighth Thorndon Cream and the timeless grey blue of Resene Raven. the exterior of this Jennian home fits perfectly into the beachside community of Papamoa, Bay of Plenty. One lucky winner wins each Heart Foundation lottery home.

Colour your club

This cool initiative is designed to help sports, hobby or community clubs appear smart and fresh all year round, especially those that are beginning to look a little worse for wear. Resene will provide fresh colour and paint to bring them back to their very best and reinvigorate and enhance the place where people go to gather and connect.

Resene has three prizes of $1500 worth of Resene quality paints, primers/sealers, wood stains and accessories to give away. In addition, each winning club will receive a $500 Prezzy Card to use to keep their volunteer painters nourished and happy while they paint! Plus they have 10 spot prizes of $250 Resene ColorShop vouchers to give away.

Nominate your club here and tell Resene why they deserve to win. Entries close 31 December 2024.

Paint New Zealand Beautiful

Resene proudly works with Keep New Zealand Beautiful with the Paint New Zealand Beautiful programme, which is designed to help beautify our communities. As well as making them bright, colourful and creative, mural art has also been shown to reduce anti-social behaviour such as littering and graffiti and increase community pride.

The Resene Wall Worthy competition gives local early childhood centres, schools and youth groups the chance to tell their local history, celebrate a local hero or communicate a nature or conservation theme on a wall in their community. Winning submissions receive a Resene paint voucher they can spend on all the paint they need to get the mural painted.

This competition runs annually. Find out more here.

The Paint New Zealand Beautiful programme run by Keep New Zealand Beautiful in conjunction with Resene helps encourage mural art around the community, which has also been shown to reduce anti-social behaviour such as littering and graffiti and increase community pride.

Resene's annual Resene Hunger for Colour campaign helps to restock Salvation Army food banks around the country by swapping Resene testpots for canned food donations. Find out more at www.resene.co.nz/hunger-for-colour.

Kan Tabs for Kidney Kids

Lions Clubs New Zealand initiated the Kan Tabs program to raise awareness and funds for Kidney Kids. The specially marked Kan Tabs cans are for collecting old caps and bottle tops for recycling. Once collected they are recycled and the funds raised are sent to the Kidney Kids NZ, a not-for-profit organisation that supports and assists children with kidney disease and their families.

Recognising that there were many more Kan Tabs collection points available than were targeted, The Lions Club approached Resene to ask for assistance with supplying blank collection cans that could be used at locations across New Zealand. Resene in turn approached its can supplier, NCI who wholeheartedly pledged their support to the programme. As a result of the collaboration, thousands of printed 4 litre cans and lids have been supplied to the Lions Club for distribution across New Zealand as collection points in local businesses and community groups.

You can order your Kan Tabs collection can for your community group or business here. For home collections, just collect in an ice-cream container and donate directly to your local Lions Club.

Heads up for kids

Resene are supporting Lions Clubs New Zealand with their Heads Up for Kids project, which encourages Kiwis to dig out any unwanted currency – old, new or foreign – and drop it off at their local Resene ColorShop.

Money will go to the Lions Quest programme and to outdoor education programmes that Lions Clubs already support, such as Hillary Outdoors, Duke of Edinburgh Awards, Spirit of Adventure and Outward Bound.

Paint it

Keep an eye out for Resene’s ‘Paint It’ campaigns which run throughout the year. Resene supports incredibly worthy causes like Breast Cancer Foundation, Arthritis, Cancer Society, Epilepsy, Cure Kids and Trees that Count, as well as their Pots for Tots campaign for Plunket and Hunger for Colour to support The Salvation Army foodbanks.

Need help for your project? You can apply for Resene sponsorship here. Or click here to find out about more ways Resene is supporting everyday Kiwis across the country.