157,000 Kiwi kids are living in material hardship

Material hardship means going without the essentials – such as two good pairs of shoes, regular fruit and vegetables, and a warm jacket.

Many of these children face food insecurity, where they have limited access to nutritious food. This is a major factor in material hardship, and the most recent figures show food insecurity has reached the highest levels in more than a decade.*

*The Salvation Army (2025). Ending food insecurity: What needs to be done now. The Salvation Army Social Policy and Parliamentary Unit. 

Every child deserves to be warm and dry – but many still need our support to experience this. With your help, we’ve already provided over 38,000 pairs of shoes and 58,000 jackets to kids across New Zealand this year, but the need remains high.

To shine a light on material hardship, KidsCan has given Boy Walking, Auckland’s iconic Potters Park sculpture, a giant jacket and shoes - highlighting the scale of the issue. The 5.6m-high sculpture will be dressed for three weeks in a specially-made oversized jacket.

Thanks to Droga, our creative agency for backing this and to Supreme for creating the jacket and shoes – we couldn’t have done it without them both.