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When Rachael and Pete Hill agreed to be the drop-off point for donations for flood-stricken Hawkes Bay, they were not prepared for the generosity of the Mahurangi community.
It all started when Piers Barney posted on the Warkworth Facebook page that he had clothes to donate and asked if anyone was collecting. In response, someone said the donations had to be taken to Auckland.
Rachael says she saw the post and thought, “We could be the drop-off point to save people having to drive to the city”.
She volunteered to coordinate the collection from the Hill’s business, Citywide Kitchens in Morrison Drive, and that’s when it “just went a bit crazy”.
The message was shared on other social media sites and the donations came flooding in. As well as clothes, linen and non-perishable food, they received offers of chairs, lounge suites, a generator and a four-metre farm gate.
“People’s generosity was insane!” she says. “One person turned up with a suitcase full of brand new clothing that still had the labels on it, while many arrived with brand new pillows and duvets.”
The Citywide van was quickly filled “to the brim” and Pete and Rachael dropped the first load to Penrose. The van was soon filled a second time, with the second load destined to be part of a shipping container leaving from Silverdale.
“We were so grateful that people just turned up to help, including Sue Autridge and Lisa Bough, and Ali Dalziell, who managed the social media. We packaged everything into boxes and then labelled them so it would be easy for people to manage at the other end.”
Rachael says by midday on Saturday, the message had come back from Auckland that they were no longer accepting clothes or linen, as they had been swamped with donations from across Auckland.
“We had to restrict what we accepted to sanitary products, water, food, nappies and baby clothes. We donated the excess clothing to other charities where possible.”
Rachael said while a lot of people had family and friends in the Hawkes Bay, there were many who donated because they “just wanted to do something to help”.
