When Lauryn Miller was forced to stay at home during New Zealand’s stringent Covid-19 lockdown, which has barred everyone but essential workers from leaving their houses, she jumped at the chance “to do something for anyone”.

Miller, 34, who usually works as a librarian in New Zealand’s capital, Wellington – and lives in the quiet, beachfront suburb of Lyall Bay – has been helping, along with her friends, to deliver food parcels to people nearby who have been left vulnerable during the four-week national shutdown.

“For about three years or so I’ve been going over to the apartments, at first in a library capacity, to make relationships with people who might not know that the library is available,” Miller says, referring to the council flats where she delivers some of the packages. “Now I’ve got a lot of friendships that are there.”

She and her friends from the suburb’s tiny Lyall Bay Community church have navigated strident restrictions on moving around the city during the lockdown, public health precautions and item limits on supermarket purchases to put together the food parcels and distribute them over fences and on doorsteps.

The food parcels are funded by new micro-grants from the New Zealand government based on the idea that those who know their neighbours will be best placed to assist them. NZ$4.8m (£2.4m) – almost $1 for every New Zealander – has been set aside for the scheme, which groups can apply for in up to $5,000 lump sums to spend on projects that improve local wellbeing.

When New Zealand’s stringent stay-home rules began in late March, Jacinda Ardern, the prime minister, urged people to support each other.

“Go home tonight and check on your neighbours, start a phone tree with your street, plan how you’ll stay in touch with one another,” she said. Four weeks later, 14 people have died of Covid-19 in New Zealand, with new infections slowed to a trickle.

“We will get through this together, but only if we stick together, so please be strong and be kind,” Ardern added.

But uncertainty has grown for the plight of New Zealanders most in need when the lockdown ends. Demand for grocery parcels has risen throughout the country during the pandemic, and the coordinator of one food bank in the North Island town of Masteron told Radio New Zealand this week that it had almost run out of stock.

At a flat close to Miller’s home in Lyall Bay, Lizzie, 52, says the charity that she usually visits for food is shuttered because it relies on leftover food from local cafes, which are also closed. She lives alone, and spent the first anniversary of her mother’s death in total isolation.

When Miller – who she has known “for years” – knocked on her door recently with a food parcel, she was relieved to see a face she knew. A packet of chocolate biscuits in her food parcel was equally welcome.

A walker on Lyall Bay beach. Photograph: Dave Lintott/REX/Shutterstock

Lizzie has asthma and is prone to bronchitis, but adds that if she does get sick she will not have to “go out and get groceries and put other people at risk”, because she is receiving the parcels. Advocates for marginalised people fear that others have fallen through the cracks.

For Cindy Newport, 34, a Lyall Bay resident and friend of Miller’s, hearing from someone in the neighbourhood who had struggled to connect with New Zealand’s social welfare agency by phone in the lockdown’s early days had spurred her to apply for the government micro-grant. The ministry for social development recorded 75,000 phone calls – an unprecedented number – asking for help over four days near the start of the shutdown. It said in a statement that call volumes were now back to normal.

The agency had slashed red tape on the grants in favour of speed – with barely any paperwork required – and the money appeared in the Lyall Bay group’s bank account just days after they had applied for it.

“It was the most straightforward thing I’d ever done,” Newport says.

A military-style operation began between Newport, her husband and their flat mates to safely acquire goods for the food parcels without spreading infection. As New Zealand’s winter approaches, they will also supply heaters and blankets to those who need them.

Food parcels outside Cindy Newport’s home. Photograph: Cindy Newport

“What I am anticipating is that we haven’t even seen the impact of job losses yet,” she says. “We might be a nice, affluent suburb but the reality is that a lot of people will have impacts from this so I think the needs are only going to increase.”

Lyall Bay is a friendly, relaxed area but although its beachfront cafes are closed and surfing is banned, the old spirit is still evident. A block from Newport’s house, one family has kept a diary in chalk on the footpath during the lockdown. “Day 9: It’s tough, but do what you can to help others,” one slogan reads.

At nearby Lyall Bay school, swings and netball courts sit empty; usually the grounds are hectic with families in the afternoons or at weekends.

“I hated having to lock the gates the other day,” says Melanie Dean, the school’s principal. “It just didn’t feel right.”

Of the 13 food parcels the Lyall Bay group had packed in the first 24 hours after receiving their grant, 10 were left with families whose children attended the school.

Dean says she asked staff to nominate those who might be in need “for a variety of reasons”, before one teacher who has worked at the school for more than 20 years picked up the parcels from Newport’s home and delivered them anonymously.

“People don’t like to receive help like that, even if they need it,” Dean says. “We didn’t even contact the families to let them know. We just dropped it on their doorsteps as a surprise.”