Taking care of our own backyard

As a local business, we see it as our corporate responsibility to give back to our local communities and do our bit to help protect the environment. Coming from a rural background ourselves, we have a deep understanding and passion for the outdoors, that we want to be able to pass on to future generations. Our focus here is to develop programmes that look after the people who work and play in the outdoors and to be responsible custodians of the outdoors. To facilitate and involve others in our endeavors, Stoney Creek owners Brent and Juanita McConnell established Our Backyard Trust (OBT), which focuses on conservation, child and community well-being, and rural mental health. OBT has been instrumental in organising our initiatives, events, and projects. We invite individuals and businesses to join us in protecting New Zealand’s environment and embracing our strong community values for the benefit of future generations.

Community & Conservation

Each year we get behind a number of conservation, community and rural groups through supporting and fund-raising initiatives that give back to grassroots NZ. Our current sustainability-focused partnership is with the Central North Island Sika Foundation, which focuses on keeping healthy numbers of animals, and tend to the sustainable management of the environment and land that the animals reside upon.

Coastal Clean Up

Every year, Our Backyard Trust, Stoney Creek, Tauranga Sport Fishing Club, volunteers, and local businesses join forces for our Coastal Clean Up. The purpose of this annual project is to protect our waterways and marine life and to further encourage other people and businesses to support the ongoing protection of our valuable natural resources. For the first-ever Coastal Clean Up project in 2022, we are proud to say that we removed over 5 TONNES OF RUBBISH from the area, including abandoned vehicles, that were leaching into the Harbour Waterways. At our second Coastal Clean Up event in 2023 we collected a further 4 TONNES OF RUBBISH in the bins, PLUS AN EXTRA 1.5 TONNES estimated in poles, rubbish and debris extracted by the helicopter that couldn’t fit in the bins. That takes our total over the past two years to 11 TONNES of rubbish!!!

Caring For Our Kids Campaign

For several years now, Stoney Creek and Our Backyard Trust (OBt) has driven Winter Kids Packs community initiatives. Encouraging other businesses and families to donate and support and partnering with organisations such as Curate Church for the distribution drives, we are well on our way of reaching our goal of having clothed over 100,000 kids with Winter Warm Up Packs who couldn’t clothe themselves.

Check on your Mates Campaign

As a family-oriented company, we’re dedicated to giving back and supporting mental health initiatives, recognising the impact of poor mental health and suicide in our rural communities. Our “Check on Your Mates” campaign supports the Will to Live Trust’s Rural Change program, addressing rural mental health challenges in New Zealand. The campaign coincides with Mental Health Awareness Week. Proceeds from the sale of our Checkmate, Checkchick, and Checkkid Polos during Mental Health Awareness Week fund private counselling sessions for farmers, aiming to reduce waiting times to 2-3 days, and providing them with a personalised health professional guide, one funded private counselling/psychologist session, and an onboarding to Rural Support Trust for future support.

Our Sustainable Journey

We’re committed to reducing our environmental impact by using compostable bags, sustainable fabrics, responsibly sourced down, and minimisng harmful chemicals in our products. Over 22 tonnes have been saved by using compostable garment bags.

Child & Community Wellbeing

Within our local community and in the current climate we are living in, we are now encountering a lot more poverty within our own backyard. Our vision is to influence others that it’s ok to give, and to encourage people to protect their own backyard and what matters most to our communities. Our mission is to influence a movement of people who want to give back to our community and to make a difference in our own backyard.

Conservation

We are aiming to protect our wild lands, wildlife, oceans and rivers. The outdoors is in our blood and we want to protect all those things that we are so passionate about which instils the values of providing for our families. We wish to ensure that these beautiful and plentiful resources are available to our future generations to enjoy and to nurture.

Rural Mental Health

Our rural communities are built around resilient communities and individuals that are tough, rough and don’t tend to show their emotions. Rural mental health has a lot of catching up to do. This is a growing area of concern, and we need to find more ways to get the Rural Community to speak up and ask for help.

Our Story

“For our whole lives, Juanita and I have worked and played on the land and in the outdoor environment. It’s definitely made us who we are today. This passion for the outdoors is something that I wish for our kids and grandchildren to have. Outdoor experiences, both work and play, knock the edges off you. They test you and build resilience. Sometimes this resilience barrier is built so high, when people fall, they fall hard.

I know that there needs to be a balance. As I’ve become older, it has become clearer that we have a responsibility to make sure this balance is maintained and protected, and that we must assist so that it can be enjoyed by the future generations to come. For years, I’ve been trying to work out a way of creating a model and method to steward and support three key areas. Conservation, Child & Community Wellbeing, and Rural Mental Health.

I’ve realised that you can’t do it all on your own, and the more people that are involved, the more effect we will have. The foundation of Our Backyard Trust will create an avenue to look after people and families that work and play in the outdoors. It helps answer the following questions that I had:

- How do we provide support to families that are struggling to make ends meet?- How do we provide support to grassroots?- How can we influence rural people to ask for help? How do we preserve parts of New Zealand?- How do we protect animals that roam and work the land?

The key purpose of Our Backyard Trust is to be transparent stewards of the collected funds and distribute them in a responsible way to achieve the questions that I had. Our Backyard Trust was registered in 2018. We now have a group of like-minded people that are empowered to govern, by way of a board, the funds that are donated and then distributed into projects that support these three key areas.

Anyone can put a project forward for consideration. If you want to assist or feel like you have something to offer towards any of these three key areas, or a service that you can provide, please enquire through the website or connect with me directly.

The great thing is that you can donate anything from a dollar personally, right through to a large sum if you are a commercial business.

At the end of the day, if we can help protect what we genuinely love for the generations to come by providing support through Our Backyard Trust, I’ll die a happy man.”

Brent McConnell
CEO of Stoney Creek

Get In Touch

Want to suggest an initiative or a project, or get involved in some way? Get in contact with us to talk more.

Make a Donation

Any support, no matter how big or small, makes a difference.