Referrals for firewood were received from a total of 33 different agencies in Tauranga Moana, which has been a wonderful opportunity to strengthen existing collaborations and create many new connections between agencies also.
We asked some of our recipients some questions about Firewood. This is some of their responses :
Thinking about your recent interaction, how do you feel, and how have we helped?
“Very appreciative, definitely. I would have had to go to WINZ and get into more debt for wood and pay it back per week on top of my other WINZ debt.”
This Photo by Unknown
“Grateful for the help from everyone, I feel pretty good and you have helped keep the house warm and the kids. An awesome job for the community.”
“We don’t have to worry so much about preserving the firewood pile and can run the fire as needed.”
“Felt really good to get out of the house with the kids and do something for the day”, “It was really nice as I’ve been feeling down in the dumps and had surgery on my back last year so it was good to feel like I could get out and do somethings again”.
“I just feel over the moon and blessed and appreciative, humbled by it. It means the world to me”.
“My house is warm and just the pleasant interactions when I’m having a lot of crap. A smiley guy being friendly, and it mattered, my whole situation was taken into account. He’ll never know what it meant to me on that day”.
“Like a well-oiled machine, nothing went wrong, and everyone pulled together. I’m definitely happy and grateful for me, and the whole community”
“As a family we contributed to others and ourselves and got to talk about giving and receiving, we are now able to work better as a household”
“It went smoothly, the process was good it flowed and went quickly, it was well organised, and people could fit in. Knowing about the sense of community and now that help is there.”
“You go home with a sense of purpose and knowing that you helped others. It was an awesome feeling.”
“It was a good way to connect with my children, I had three of them out there, and doing the mahi together” What could we improve?
“More marketing and advertising for the firewood. Get more sponsors to supply and meet the demand.” “More budget as the work ran out due to not enough in the budget to complete the work”
“Some of the firewood is really wet – we are friends with one of the team on the day and he said that a different pile should have been used” “its manageable but I wonder if there was a communication mix up on the day?” “Generally, the communication on the day was friendly and clear, that was done really well”.
“If anything, it would have been better to have more areas to stack the wood onto the trailer – more piles of wood that we were allowed to get, spread out. I hit a lady with a piece of wood as we were too close together!”
“Payment plan, even $40 is quite a lot to be taken out in one week. Or give people more notice. Or lining it up with the winter energy payment or something”.
“Keep up the manaakitangi, making sure you don’t become another system!”
In your experience what is the biggest need in the community right now?
“Service like yours, practical help, lawnmowers, wood and stuff. You need more funding to keep doing what you do”. “There are so many needs in the community, the elderly and sick are most vulnerable, and your assistance makes the difference”.
“Support for families in need”.
“Housing”
“Low-income families not being able to provide for their children”
“Tauranga needs an entire new Women’s Refuge”
“When people have complex problems, we need more people that know how to deal with it, wrap around services with qualified people to deal with trauma” “We need more trauma informed psychotherapists”.
“Not enough support”
“Address meth dealers, causing theft, burglaries, violence, family harm, it is unpredictable, I have seen it firsthand and it is ugly”
“Benefit/cost of food/housing”
“Suicide rates”
“All the failing systems, WINZ, Family court...”
“I would say support and knowledge of what’s out there in the community for help. I didn’t realise half the stuff you did” “Food”
“Knowing there is more support” “Knowing how we are available”
“Being aware that youse are there. Being out there and part of something like that”
