Otago University Students Association (OUSA) have only been receiving baking from Dunedin Good Bitches Baking (GBB) volunteers since March 2026, but student support manager Dwaine Tait says they already don’t know how they ever lived without it.

The support centre provides help to all Otago University students, supporting them to navigate a range of challenges, from living away from home for the first time to managing studies while raising a whānau - “anything that impacts their ability to study,” Dwaine says. 

“Sometimes we are meeting a student on the worst day of their life,” Dwaine says. “It is wonderful to be able to offer them some baking. It means the world to them.” 

Earlier this year, an OUSA staff member heard about GBB and signed them up, “and, the next thing we knew, these white boxes started showing up once a week,” Dwaine says. 

The treats - which are baked and delivered by local GBB volunteers -  immediately helped the team to forge connections with the students who came in seeking support.

“It’s nice to be able to meet someone’s basic needs, especially because they don’t come in expecting it,” Dwaine says. 

Dwaine says the difference a simple piece of home baking can make is remarkable. “It sounds silly until you see it,” he says, “but you’re asking someone in a really vulnerable space to open up to you and tell you what’s going on for them. The baking really helps break the ice, gives them something to do with their hands. It’s been a huge help.”

Recently, Dwaine had a group of young men come in looking for help with a tenancy issue. It was their first time living away from home, and they had no idea what to do. “They were all standing there, no one was talking, no one was making eye contact,” Dwaine remembers, “they were down in the dumps. And I was able to say ‘hey, someone just dropped off a box of cookies, can I get you one?’ It changed the entire mood of the room.”

The young men couldn’t believe someone had made the cookies for them, but they quickly ate them up. “They devoured them,” Dwaine says, “suddenly, they were laughing, connecting, and we could start the conversation.”

On another occasion, Dwaine met with a woman who declined a drink but welcomed a freshly-baked blueberry muffin. “I could tell she was carrying something heavy,” Dwaine says, “and I could at least give her this.”

Everyone who receives the baking through OUSA is amazed it is baked and delivered for free by volunteers, and the OUSA staff are just as grateful.

“I don’t know how we can go back to life without you; I hope it lasts forever,” Dwaine says. “Students don’t know how often it arrives, but staff now rely on the baking to ease the way forward. It just makes our job so much easier.”