Linking with the community
Kindercare – Linking with the community
Kindercare’s mission echoes our commitment to developing the full potential in every child placed in our care. And this will always be our primary focus. However, we are always mindful of the number of lives, not directly connected to ours, that face many and varied challenges - challenges which impact on the ability of these individuals and communities to reach their full potential. As an advocate for all children and families, we cannot necessarily overcome all those challenges. But we can and do strive, through our community initiatives, to bring about some positive change in the lives of those not personally known to us. There is a rich reward in knowing that your contribution has significantly impacted the life of another.
We’d like to share some of our current community initiatives with you.
Buy-A-Blanket
For the past 3 years, Kindercare has commissioned a New Zealand supplier to manufacture thousands of 100% wool blankets. Just prior to winter, these are distributed to various organisations, including the City Missions, Salvation Army, Birth Right, ADRA,Women’s Refuge, in Auckland, Christchurch and Wellington. These organisations have well-established links with their local communities and are therefore best placed to ensure that those individuals and families most in need, benefit from receiving a donated blanket. Each year, we invite parents and staff at our Kindercare centres to be part of this initiative if they choose to, by either purchasing or giving a donation towards the cost of these blankets. All transport and administrative costs are carried by Kindercare. Every year, the thanks and appreciation from those who receive the blankets has been heartfelt. There is something very special in knowing that your individual contribution has kept a child, young adult or older citizen warm through our cold winters.
Ronald McDonald House
Ronald McDonald House in Auckland is run by the RMH Auckland Trust, a 100% community charitable trust. The House and Family Room provide a haven for families from all over NZ whose desperately ill children require potentially lifesaving treatment. They provide shelter and support for these families, many of whom have to travel to Auckland because the specialist treatment their child urgently requires isn’t necessarily available to them nearby. Families with children in intensive care are also provided with emergency accommodation in the Ronald McDonald House Family Room located inside Starship, because there are times when even being 5 minutes away from your child is too far.
Kindercare is a business club supporter of Ronald McDonald House – providing an ongoing financial commitment to ensure the viability of the House. Our staff have also been involved in volunteer work, including working shifts in the House over weekends to assist with reception, cooking and serving meals, doing activities with children and any other jobs that need to be done to keep the house running efficiently.
Samaritan’s Purse – Christmas Shoeboxes
For the past 3 years, Kindercare has been a part of Operation Christmas Child. This initiative enables us, as a community, to reach out to children between the ages of 2 and 14 years, in other parts of the world, delivering gift-filled shoes boxes and the Good News of God’s love at Christmas. Run by The Samaritan’s Purse, it enables people of any age to be involved in a simple, hands-on mission project that puts the love back into Christmas and back into the hearts of hurting and less fortunate children. Since 1993, this project has brought joy to thousands of children in desperate circumstances. Shoe boxes, filled with simple age-appropriate gifts like school supplies, toys and personal items are presented to children at Christmas and with it, a message to them that, despite their circumstances, they are loved and special. Towards the end of the year, we invite our parents and staff (and their extended families if they choose to), to participate in this project. We distribute and collect the filled boxes and ensure they are transported to the collection point, ready to be shipped overseas. The feedback from those who let us know about the reactions of the children, some who are orphaned or simply have never received a gift of their own in their lives, is both moving and humbling, especially in light of the Christmas celebrations that so many in our communities are accustomed to.
Clothing Drive (The Living and Learning Foundation)
The Living and Learning Foundation is a charitable trust, which was set up by the Directors of Kindercare Learning Centres in 2005, to support and advance the health, welfare, education and learning of life skills of all individuals, families, groups and organisations, living in socially and economically disadvantaged communities. The Living and Learning Foundation believes that, with the right support, all New Zealanders will have a far better chance of attaining success in their lives.
The establishment of Family Centres, through the Living and Learning Foundation, was a concept that was developed as a means to best assist New Zealand families who were most in need. Our very first family centre in Favona, Mangere, has been built around the early childhood centre and has been partially funded by the Ministry of Education’s Discretionary Grant Scheme. The centre was recently completed, licensed and has welcomed the first families with babies, toddlers and preschoolers into their care.
Tough economic times highlight the strain many families are under in terms of providing the necessities for their children. And clothing is an ongoing outlay, especially when you consider how quickly children grow and change. However, while one child may have outgrown a particular item, another child could still get a considerable amount of wear out of the same garment. It was this reasoning that culminated in our decision to hold a clothing drive. This would give our current families, and staff, the option to bring in good second-hand clothing, no longer being used by their family, and make it available to another family. The centres that were approached to participate in this drive responded generously and produced a large supply of clothes, for boys and girls of all ages. These will be made available to the children at the Family Centre in Mangere – and hopefully, go some way towards easing the financial burden on these families.
Christmas Community Outreach
In most workplaces, an end-of-year Christmas function is standard practice. These take a variety of forms but invariably involve a meal, gift, time out of the office etc. Three years ago, the staff at Support Office in Auckland were challenged to a new idea – an end of year function that focused on bringing Christmas to a family/community on Auckland’s North Shore who were not able to celebrate the way so many of us simply take for granted. The idea was enormously successful. Armed with details of struggling families, through the Salvation Army, staff worked in teams, competing against each other, to come up with novel and innovative ways to put together Christmas packages for these families. Gifts selected specifically for each member of the family were then wrapped and delivered to the Salvation Army who ensured the families received them before Christmas morning. In 2008, we altered our plan slightly and chose Onepoto Primary School, a decile 1 school in Northcote as our special Christmas project. The Support Office team planned a special afternoon of games, a visit by special guest, Sam (from Sticky TV) and a brilliant performance by Limit Break, an Auckland hip-hop group, to entertain the children from year 1 to year 6. The afternoon also included afternoon tea and culminated in a visit by Santa, arriving on a Fire Truck. After wishing the children a merry Christmas, he told them to return to their classrooms, where a special surprise was waiting for them. The children each found a bag of presents in their classroom – specially purchased for their age and gender. It is hard to describe in words the reward found when we were privileged enough to be able to redirect resources, that would have been spent on ourselves, to those children and families who, daily, have so much less than we are accustomed to. Kindercare would encourage other organisations and businesses to give this a try – there are so many, many worthy causes that, once a year, we could be getting alongside and sharing what we are so blessed to have.
