During the Otago Farmers Market at the Dunedin Railway station, the former employees can be found in the factory’s former carpark raising money for Gumboot Friday, Life Matters, and other charities by asking for a donation from people who park there.
So far, they have raised more than $53,000 for various charities.
Former Cadbury worker Megan Fairley said they wanted to raise awareness for the connection between redundancy and mental illness, because it was a heartbreaking experience to go through.
"We lost a staff member to suicide from the Cadbury’s crew; they did take their life after the redundancy.
"The redundancy was tough, but what came after was so much tougher," she said.
After leaving Cadbury many former employees noticed a trend of rampant workplace bullying.
"These people were already hurting, and now they were being hurt again.
"We have a motto from Michelle Obama: when people are nasty and cruel to you, they go low, and we go high — our motto is to do better, " Ms Fairley said.
Ms Fairley said if they did not raise a voice and speak about it, it would continue to happen to other people.
"Our society can be pretty tough. We want to break that stigma because it is OK to ask for help."
When the factory was open, the employees had a rotation for who would go out and collect donations — and after Cadbury closed, it went dead for a while.
However, in October 2020, former employees got together to continue the operation.
Ms Fairley said mental health was the hardest cause to collect donations for, because you could not see it.
"I’m sure people look at me and say, yeah she doesn’t have depression — but they don’t see you in the background when you’re crying."
When they first started collecting donations again, they faced a fair bit of abuse.
One member of the public called the police on them for their fundraising efforts, and another woman told them she was "sick of us people raising money for mental health".
However, this had not deterred the group.
