Skip to main content

Story: Voluntary welfare organisations

Soup kitchen

Image
Soup kitchen

Soup kitchens run by a range of voluntary organisations during the 1930s depression provided hot meals for unemployed people. Here, men queue at a makeshift soup kitchen staffed by women volunteers in Wellington, around 1932.

Using this item

Alexander Turnbull Library, Dominion Post Collection (PA-Group-00685)

Reference: EP-8645-1/2-F

Permission of the Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand, Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa, must be obtained before any re-use of this image.

All images & media in this story

How to cite this page

Margaret Tennant, Voluntary welfare organisations – Depression and the welfare state, Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/en/photograph/29055/soup-kitchen (accessed 4 June 2026).

Story by Margaret Tennant, published 24 February 2011.