Having delivered over half a million moments of joy to Kiwis going through a tough time, the co-founders of Good Bitches Baking are determined to make New Zealand the kindest nation in the world.
In just three and a half years the charity has grown to include over 1400 volunteers from around the country, but it's not enough for the pair who manage to do it all while working full time.
"We've got this crazy notion that we can make New Zealand the kindest place on earth,"co-founder Nic Murray told 1 NEWS.
Three years ago while catching up over some drinks Nic Murray and Marie Fitzpatrick were talking about life, when the issues of homelessness and and overflowing Women's Refuge shelters were brought up.
"We decided that is was a completely normal thing to do, to try and make the world better by baking treats," said Ms Murray.
"A little bit of kindness from a stranger or from a friend is sometimes all you need to lift you out of that dark hole and give you enough hope that things aren't all awful."
"We've always been into food and cooking makes us happy so those subjects all sort of merged together that night and we woke up the next day - slightly dusty - and carried on, and just thought half a dozen of our friends would be keen…and pow, here we are," Marie Fitzpatrick told 1 NEWS.
Three and a half years on there are about 18 Good Bitches Baking chapters around the country, with more in the works, and more than 1400 volunteer bakers, making sweet treats.
"We work through other charities like Rape Crisis, Women's Refuge, hospices, Cancer Society, Canteen, homeless shelters, anywhere that there’s groups of people who are going through some sort of crisis or terrible time in their lives that could do with a treat," said Ms Murray.
The Wellington bakers credit their success to the structure they've created "for people to hang their kindness around".
"It can be challenging to know when and where and how it's appropriate to help and so all we've done is created a really accessible way for people to do something good for others in their communities that's relatively low confrontation," said Ms Fitzpatrick.
The response from people is what keeps them going.
"We get a little text message or an email from someone that says, 'I was at my lowest point, and I came across a plate of cookies and it brought me to tears the idea that someone out there was thinking of me and cared enough to try and cheer me up'."
The community of bakers has delivered about 500,000 of those moments with hopes it to be a million in another year or two.
Both Nic and Marie have continued working full time whilst the charity has sky rocketed in popularity over the past three years, fundraising enough money to hire someone part-time to help out.
"Really the cold hard reality is that charities need money to operate, so we're continuing to focus on getting enough money that we can have a small staff to operate it. So that we don’t kill ourselves."
"So even though it's been quite a personal cost to us, time wise and time with our families, and financially it's just…just too good not to do."
They're even determined to reach an even bigger goal. They're now determined to make New Zealand the kindest place on earth, even if it doesn't just involve baking.
"We don't know what that looks like yet, but we've got some sort of burning desire to sort of leverage what we've achieved so far and knock it out of the park."
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