Big Buddy helps Rotoroa Island stay pest-free

Date: March 2025

Helping Hand: Mitre 10 New Zealand

Project: We were wrapped to get behind Big Buddy in their initiative to keep Rotoroa Island pest-free.

Big Buddy is a charity group that supports young boys without a dad in their lives, pairing them up with a Big Buddy who gives them friendship, support, and a positive male role model to look up to. It’s a fantastic program, with 25 years of successful partnerships, changed lives, and strengthened communities.

In February 2025, Big Buddy launched its first community service initiative, Big Buddy Does Good. The inaugural project was getting stuck in to help Rotoroa Island, a sanctuary for native birds, become pest-free. We were stoked to join Big Buddy and the Rotoroa Island Trust to build 50 new rat traps.

We provided the tools and materials and hosted a workshop for the Big and Little Buddies at our national support centre. Stan the Builder brought his building knowledge and Jo Ritchie, the Rotoroa Island Operations Manager, brought her conservation expertise to help the buddies build their DOC200 rat traps. These traps will replace the worn out ones on the island, which fell into disrepair while the island was pest-free for an entire decade.

The workshop was a great day full of fun, creativity, learning, and best of all, pizza and ice blocks. The little buddies learnt some new skills, and had a great time adding some personal flair to their traps.

The Buddies (both Big and Little) took the rat traps out to Rotoroa Island in late March, thanks to Explore Group, who provided the transport. Not just an exercise in conservation, it was also a bit of an adventure and an opportunity to learn about the island’s ecosystem.

We were absolutely stoked to be involved in this initiative, supporting the passing of knowledge down to the next generation of Kiwi DIY legends and contributing to an important conservation effort in our own backyard.

If you’d like to find out more about Big Buddy or think you might know someone who’d like to get involved, check them out here. You can also find out more about Rotoroa Island here.