Meet the 86-year-old who has just started baking sweet treats for those in need

The useful part

Paeroa's Ann Stanaway picked up a new hobby this year – baking up a storm for those in her community who need it most. For the last two decades, Ann Stanaway has been quite happy keeping out of the kitchen. While she says she did "the usual wife-mother-thing" once upon a time, health issues saw her husband take over all the cooking in their home about 20 years ago, while she continued to work.

How it works

• First launching back in 2014, the organisation now has 32 chapters nationwide, where over 5,500 volunteers provide nearly 40,000 boxes of sweet treats a year to over 600 charities and groups supporting...
• "I thought that's a good enough reason for getting back in there and doing some baking," she says.

Details worth keeping

"When you're out in the garden, and you hear the call that lunch is ready, you're not going to say no to that, are you?" But more recently, not long after celebrating her 86th birthday, Stanaway rediscovered the joys of the kitchen through Good Bitches Baking. <img alt="" sizes="700px" srcset="https://images.thespinoff.co.nz/1/2026/09/Roz-Bay-of-Islands-Riding-for-the-Disabled-Box.jpg?w=70&fm=auto&auto=compress%2Cformat 70w, https://images.thespinoff.co.nz/1/2026/09/Roz-Bay-of-Islands-Riding-for-the-Disabled-Box.jpg?w=250&fm=auto&auto=compress%2Cformat 250w, h...