Sunday, December 06, 2009

A little Volunteering.

Yesterday some of the members of my Patchwork and Quilting Group manned the Waipuna Hospice Remembrance Trees in the foyer of a local supermarket. The time went very quickly as we mainly sat and chatted when not assisting folk. Really they only needed someone to guard the money and stop kids interfering with the trees.
I did shifts first with Dorothy seen here and later with Merle. Other good friends who took a turn were Alison, Faye, Nan, and Helen.




As a fund raiser this seems to work well,
as the trees, baubles and straightened paper clips used to attach the baubles and messages are all reused year after year. The messages are blessed in a service and buried in the Hospice garden. Similar trees are placed at Bayfair, Fraser Cove, Katikati, Te Puke and Palm Beach. Last year the trees raised $22,000.
Some folk were very generous giving much larger donations. Everyone knows what a wonderful job the Hospice does.  Some found this simple act very emotional.

4 comments:

Jennifer said...

What a wonderful idea....I can see why it moved some people to tears.

loulee said...

That's a lovely idea. Were you in a Pak n save? ;-) See I have been down your way recently! LOL

molly said...

Earlier this year Hospice made my M-I-L's last few weeks comfortable and bearable. It is a wonderful organization. Good for you helping them out!

Meggie said...

A wonderful worthy cause. We were shocked to learn recently, when a relative was dying, who lived in Hamilton, Tauranga was the closest available Hospice.