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Warkworth mother and daughter team, Christine and Liz Sanderson, have celebrated a lot of birthdays together. This month they’ll mark a birthday of a different kind, the 30th birthday of Harbour Hospice’s Warkworth shop on Queen Street.
The shop has been part of their lives since opening on August 28, 1995, with Christine volunteering from its first week and Liz becoming shop manager in 2016.
When it opened, Christine had just completed her training to become a volunteer community visitor for hospice.
“The shop manager was Vonnie Wynn and she told me she was going to be exhausted by the end of the week because she’d already spent weeks organising everything,” Christine recalls. “I offered to look after Thursday for her and, for the next six years, I was the Thursday coordinator.”
The early operations were run out of a space not much bigger than a cupboard, which had previously been a butcher shop cooler. Since then, the shop has expanded into a former storage area and the shop next door. It also now extends across the alleyway to include shop spaces, Tickled Pink and The Bach.
The original shop is used to sort donations.
Over this time, hospice has had the same landlords. Bob Deans let the space to hospice for five weeks in 1995, with the “possibility of extended time”. Liz describes him as “the most wonderful, supportive landlord” who handed the reins to his son Kyle in 2021.
“The family has always been very good to us. Bob even stopped charging us rent during covid when we couldn’t operate.”
These days, Liz and her assistant managers are supported by 74 volunteers.
“Every week we rely on 40 to 50 volunteers to operate, and they all turn up for their shifts or give plenty of warning if they can’t. They’re amazing, they’re so committed.”
The shop has always been known for its quality preloved clothing and sells a lot of New Zealand designer labels. From the outset, clothing was identified as a potential top seller, with Vonnie Wynn writing in a fundraising report in 1995: “We have been asked by many customers whether we have jeans available – they are apparently a very popular second-hand item, so if anyone has any lurking in the back of their wardrobes we would greatly appreciate them.”
Christine, who has volunteered for Harbour Hospice for a remarkable 30 years, says the shop has always been well supported with community donations, with some regulars coming in two or three times a week.
“A lot of our volunteers share their stories with us, as well. They’ve had loved ones cared for by hospice, and they might not say anything at first but as time goes on, they tell us why they’re here.
“Our hospice shop is a very special place filled with very special people.”
Harbour Hospice cares for one in two people who are dying in the Warkworth/Wellsford area and, collectively, its 17 shops raise half of the charity’s annual fundraising needs.
“Our shops are run by our community, for our community, and every donation and dollar spent makes life better for a hospice patient,” hospice retail services manager Maria Baird says.
“We’re so grateful for the huge amount of support we’ve had in the last 30 years.”
Celebrations to mark the shop’s birthday will be advertised on hospice’s social media pages.
