Over 160,000 children are living in poverty and as the cost-of-living crisis worsens, many families are struggling more than ever before.
Thousands of children will wake up on Christmas morning without presents, or even food. This year, you can be the reason they unwrap a little bit of joy instead.
Donate now - Kindness.org.nz ❤️ 🎅🏽
The PJ Project has one simple aim, to help keep kids warm in winter!
Over 143,700 kids are living in poverty. This means 1 in 8 children go without the basics, including food, shelter, healthcare and warmth. Being cold can have a detrimental effect on health, school attendance and overall wellbeing.
As the cost of living continues to climb, The PJ Project is one small way we can collectively make a difference for thousands of families feeling the cold. In 2023 we provided over 14,500 pairs of PJs to kids around the country and this winter, with the help of The Warehouse Group, we're going one step further to help heat up Kiwi homes.
From 1st May - 31st July you can donate, collect, drop and get involved to help us deliver winter pyjamas, warm blankets and cost-effective heating options so families in need don't have to choose heating over eating this winter.
Head to kindness.org.nz to help!
We’ve teamed up with Stan Walker to bring joy to whānau in need this Christmas.
We’re grateful to Stan for sharing his incredible voice, Christmas song ‘Te Toi O Te Kirihimete’ (Favourite Part About Christmas) and new animated video with us to help spread the word about the Christmas Joy Store.
Get involved, play the song (proceeds support our mahi) and donate to help us bring Christmas to every whānau. Check out the Seven Sharp story below!
The Joy Store invites referred parents and caregivers to choose toys and treats they know their children will love, off the shelves, shopping for free.
The Store can provide thousands of families in need with the gift of kindness and the dignity of choice, but we need your help to make it happen.
Head to www.kindness.co.nz, and see how you can get involved and help deliver the magical Christmas every Kiwi kid deserves. ❤️🎅🏽
That's a wrap! Our Christmas drives and the Joy Store are now finished for 2021.
Our wonderful community of kindness came together with 22,817 toys and $608,518 worth of donations, kai and gifts donated for families to have a magical Christmas.
Thousands of children will wake up to presents and treats on Christmas morning, families staying in refuge safe houses will enjoy food hampers, gifts and mothers rebuilding their lives from violence get to pamper themselves, because of you. We're blown away with the incredible support from all corners of the country and we're grateful you all loved the idea behind the store as well.
We've got some big projects planned for 2022 to spread kindness all over Aotearoa, so we hope you'll join us! Meri Kirihimete, kindness whānau. We hope you get to spend it with those you love. ❤️🎅🏽
Introducing the Christmas Joy Store! We have been working on this little bundle of Christmas joy for 6 months and we’re so excited the time has finally come to share it with you. Huge thanks to The AM Show for their visit and the first look of the store.
We'll keep you updated throughout December, please keep donating so we can keep providing more parents and caregivers the dignity of choice so they can choose pressies they know their tamariki will love. www.kindness.co.nz/joystore
Christmas has officially started at KC! Today was day one of our 28 days of Christmas deliveries with the Refuge and Taonga Education Centre pressie collection day sorted. Hundreds (and hundreds) of gifts were donated, sorted, wrapped and boxed ready for delivery thanks to you guys! We have over 775 tamariki with wonderful gifts now all ready to be delivered this week.
Thank you so much to everyone who's been donating, who's bought gifts, treats and all sorts for our Taonga and Refuge families, we are just so grateful for your kindness and wonderful generosity.
HUGE thank you to our incredible volunteer team today who worked for hours on their feet, in the sun with smiles on their faces. It's our volunteers that work so hard to deliver projects for us and we are so thankful.
We've been organising since June and today is day one with our pack in for the Joy Store starting on Sunday. We've got 3 more delivery dates with 300 food hampers being made for Refuge families, and gifts for mothers too! Lots to do, so let's sleigh this! 🎅🏽
It's been a bit of a big few months for our Collective and whilst this may seem like a slightly boastful and a bit of an embarrassing update, but we can't mention one without the other. I've been lucky enough to receive a little recognition over the last few months with some awards.
It was announced this week that I received a Local Hero medal for the New Zealander of the Year awards. 100 kiwis are celebrated across the country for their part in creating change and making Aotearoa a better place and it's very humbling to be recognised as one of them. Thank you to the judges and to Kiwibank for the inclusion.
I was also nominated for and have become a finalist in the Westpac Women of Influence awards for the Local Hero category. Thank you to Westpac and Stuff for the inclusion, these awards are an incredible opportunity for women in Aotearoa and I'm amongst some really mind blowing women!
I also ended up receiving the Local Hero award for Westfield St Lukes which was just fantastic as KC was granted $10,000 for the charity. Thank you very much to everyone who voted, shared and to Westfield for the wonderful opportunity.
Thank you so so much to everyone who took the time to nominate me for these awards, it's hugely appreciated. Awards are a fantastic way to get more eyes on KC, what we do and why we do it. The end result is always more people hopefully joining our mission and more people getting the support they need.
It's our members, donors, volunteers and partners who enable us to spread practical kindness and I'm so proud of what we've built and excited for what's to come.
Thank you again, so much to everyone involved.
Sarah x
Over 50,000 kiwi kids wake up to no presents on Christmas morning and this year will be no different. It's been a tough year for families and we believe now, more than ever, joy is needed.
Help us bring Christmas kindness to thousands of kiwi kids and their families by donating new toys, food, treats and grocery vouchers to help us deliver the kind of Christmas Day every child deserves. Head to our website for more information on how to get involved! ❤️🎅🏾
We are stoked to announce our founder Sarah Page has been nominated as a Westfield Local Hero, for St Lukes.
It’s so wonderful to be recognised alongside some truly incredible people who are doing so much for their communities. Please check them all out and support them all.
If she is successful, the Kindness Collective will receive $10,000 which will contribute to a much needed community centre that will operate like a warehouse, social supermarket, offices and event space. Our charity is currently operating from her home and garage so this is desperately needed and we would absolutely love your support.
Please vote for Sarah and share with your friends, family and networks! We have until 30th August to get votes in, so let’s make it count!
VOTE HERE: https://www.westfield.co.nz/stlukes/news/FVcbsgq90VOAB9qhVbYLY/local-heroes-2021
Thank you so much for your support!
KC x
Thank you so much to everyone who voted and shared. Sarah was named as one of the winners of this year's Westfield Local Hero awards which is just fantastic. Thank you so much Westfield and everyone that voted! 🙌🏼❤️
In 14 days you raised $54,544.00 for kindness with our 100 Acts of Kindness campaign!
We are so incredibly overwhelmed with the support we received from so many different people, brands and businesses for our first crowdfunding campaign to complete 100 Acts of Kindness all across the country. Huge thank you to Discovery, Lumo Digital, Phantom Billstickers, The AM Show, Newshub, NZ Herald, Herald on Sunday, Radio New Zealand and The Edge for helping us get the word out.
It takes a lot of people to raise a little charity over $54, 544.00 and we are really grateful to everyone that helped, supported, donated and shared.
Now comes the real hard mahi! Please follow us over the next 12 months as we complete as many practical acts of kindness as we can, some big, some small, all important and impactful. We’re going to need some help along the way, but we won’t stop until Aotearoa is one giant collective of kindness.
We will be finishing up on World Kindness Day, Sunday 13th November, 2022 with something really special.
Thank you again,
Sarah & the KC Board x
June was another busy and varied month at the Kindness Collective with lots of practical resource solutions invested in the community.
Kindness Cup
We took inspiration from Te Mata school and schools all over the world and created our own version of the Kindness/Manaakitanga Cup.
We kicked off the Kindness Cup in two schools, Rosebank School and St Marys Catholic School. The Kindness Cup recognises children in the school who have been kind to people or the planet and are recognised and rewarded for doing so. Each month the teachers pick a child to recognise and they win the cup for a month and a $50 gift voucher from The Warehouse. The idea of the cup is to reward something other than just academics, sports or music, which not every child has the ability or resource to excel in. Winning the cup then fosters kindness in that child’s life, and in their home and wider community.
We are looking for businesses to sponsor a cup ($600 a year including the cup or in business vouchers) because we have schools all over the country who would love to get on the program. Get in touch if you want to get involved!
Free Guys Upgrade
There were so many highlights this month including a build project for Free Guys, which is a social supermarket in Avondale, run by Kai Avondale.
We worked with Mitre 10 and our volunteers to make the space more user friendly, functional and actually just basically, prettier. The Kai Avondale team were really pleased with the outcome and their guests were pleased with the difference.
We had an awesome day with the team and got fed by the epic Burger Fuel and Columbus Coffee Glen Eden. Thanks so much to everyone who was involved.
Jumpflex
We then teamed up with Jumpflex to deliver another trampoline to a family who needed some kindness in Hamilton and and we’ve had amazing feedback from them that the child is having a great time enjoying it!
Thank you so much Jumpflex, love spreading practical kindness through play with your team.
The Period Place
We became an Impact Partner of the Period Place which basically means all the people in our networks that have periods now have access to FREE period products. YAY! So helpful for the Refuge community.
Donations
We spent $4,538 of essentials to families and organisations in essentials deliveries, most of this was in food and toiletries this month.
We bought whiteware for Woven Earth for a new home for a family rebuilding their lives after violence.
Mitre10 helped us donate $400 worth of vouchers to Auckland Feed the Homeless for shelving units to make their food storage easier to use.
We bought 57 pairs of warm winter PJs for Aranga ECE Centre.
We sponsored Breakfast Club with a financial donation for a month so they can further support the network of breakfasts with 5 schools.
Aussie Butcher New Lynn donated thousands of dollars of meat again to our communities to feed more people.
The Sleep Store donated 40 x brand new winter merino sleep sacks which we gave to our Refuge mums and Taonga teen parent units.
Fix & Fogg sent more nut butter for Free Guys, yum!
The most epic donation came through of 15 HUGE boxes of stationary worth many thousands of dollars that we’ve been able to share with 3 schools, the refuge and 4 charities.
All in all, June was a great month with $24,269.50 worth of kindness invested in the community.
Thank you to everyone who puts their hand up to get involved.
Sarah x
Kia ora kindness crew! 👊🏼
May was another busy month with lots of amazing donations from kind people and businesses coming in which helped us bring kindness to kiwis doing it tough in our community.
👇🏼 Here’s what you did to spread kindness in your community this month!👇🏼
1.Contributed $500 to The Period Place’s Funding Network crowd funding campaign.
2.Contributed $200 to Koha Apparel’s expansion crowdfunding campaign.
3.Received and donated $12,500 worth of beautiful soaps and hand sanitisers from Manukarx which went to Mummys in Need, Taonga Education Trust, MDM Women’s Refuge and Give a kid a Blanket.
4.Purchased 4 boxes of Tegel whole chickens for Kai Avondale.
5.Received and donated 40 beautiful gift baskets for Mother’s Day from Richie & Co to mothers in the MDM Women’s Refuge.
6.Received and donated 150 kiwi soft toys to children in the MDM Womens’ Refuge thanks to Air New Zealand.
7.Received and donated 2 x 50 inch TVs, 10 x bags of beautiful clothes, 4 x cots, 2 x beds, 2 x dining suites, baby items and blankets and hats to MDM Women’s Refuge network and Mummys in Need.
8.Received and donated 30 packets of nappies to MDM Womens’ Refuge.
9. Received and donated 40 boxes of Only Organic food items to MDM Women’s Refuge.
10.Purchased 40 pairs of brand new PJs from The Warehouse with a generous discount for children in Nga Taonga Aroha ECE Centre.
11. Purchased and donated 7 boxes of Tegal Sausages to MDM Women’s Refuge and Kai Avondale.
12.Received and donated 3 boxes of sausages to Kai Avondale from Aussie Butcher New Lynn.
13.Donated to a Give a Little campaign for a child fundraising for specialist equipment for disability.
14.$40 Petrol vouchers donated and given to Give a Kid a Blanket.
15. Contributed to dessert for 300 Pax for Potluck Communal Kai, run by GaKaB for the Ranui Community, with enough cupcakes and slices left over to donate to MDM Women’s Refuge.
16. Donated $250 worth of toiletries to Kai Avondale’s Free Guys.
17. Contributed $443 worth of groceries to Act of Kindness’s refugee food parcel drive.
18. Received and donated 2.5 PALLETS of chicken products from Tegel for MDM Women’s Refuge, Hope Centre Food Bank and Give a Kid a Blanket. Over 1500 meals to people who need them.
19. Purchased a new microwave from The Warehouse for Nga Taonga Aroha staff.
20. Raised and donated $1200 worth of Superhero Cape Kits for New Plymouth Hospital kids.
21. Raised and donated $1,102 worth of LEGO with a generous discount from The Warehouse for children in Starship Hospital.
22. Donated $240 to Kai Avondale’s Breakfast Club network, a monthly sponsorship.
That’s a total of $36,016.56 invested into the community, not including any pre-loved goods donated or any volunteer hours (baking and volunteering!).
Thank you so much to everyone who made this happen. We couldn’t do ANY of this without you and appreciate your efforts, time, and contributions so much. ❤️
Sarah, Lorren, Sam, Kanoa, Matt, and Dayne, AKA the KC Board x
April kindness update!
April was another fantastic month, with lots of epic planning sessions, events and projects started (and completed).
Two highlights, sharing our community with 10x10 (read about that here) and building a massive sandpit (complete with toys and cover) for Oaklynn School for kids with Autism. These projects that benefit kiddos with Autism are always going to be my personal favourites, because I know first-hand just how much joy they can bring!
April was a bit quieter with output, simply because there’s SO much going on in the background, oh the things I can’t wait to share with everyone. So much kindness being planned to support some incredible communities and people already doing great work and lots of NEW opportunities to spread kindness, too.
Your donations, time and resource in April did this:
👇🏼👇🏼👇🏼
-Bought a hot water urn for a community hub at Rosebank School for $1,234.64 because turns out, hot water is actually quite essential to facilitating a breakfast club with up to 50 kids a day!
-Donated $580 to Koha Apparel over 3 donations to help them with their expansion and operation costs. Every city needs Koha to help bring dignity to people experiencing homelessness.
-Received and donated $1500 worth of Aesop Skincare for mothers in the Refuge. What a thrill, thanks so much guys!
-Mummys in Need needed nappies, so we donated $300 worth.
-The EastDale project is almost complete, and we spent $9200 on the building, $820 on the mural and $1037.03 on extra resourcing for things like speakers for the kids to use.
-We did another Potluck Communal Kai event with over 300 people fed dessert with Give a Kid a Blanket.
-Thanks to Service Foods and our members we fed 120 people and 80 people at the Refuge for Feed the Streets.
-Thanks to Only Organic we’ve been able to deliver $1050 worth of product to Taonga and the Refuge.
-Thanks to Service Foods we were able to deliver $750 worth of chicken and staples like flour and beans to Give a Kid a Blanket and Kai Avondale.
-Thanks to our members we donated a BRAND NEW PlayStation 4 and games to a family from Woven Earth starting their new lives in a new home to a total of $729.00.
-We then had a wonderful business who don’t want to be named donate ANOTHER PlayStation 4 and games. YAY!
-We donated $250 to Care For Families so they could get out more urgent packs to families in hospital.
-We bought Woven Earth a washing machine for a family starting out a new life post refuge for $431.25. Thanks to Monaco for the amazing discount!
-We bought and donated 500kgs worth of chicken to the Refuge, Taonga, Give a Kid a Blanket and Kai Avondale.
-We were given and donated over $4,000 worth of L’Oreal makeup! Thank you Koha Apparel!
Thank you so much for trusting us with your hard-earned money, your time and your connections to keep spreading kindness in New Zealand!
Sarah, Matt, Lorren, Dayne, Kanoa and Sam x
We're proud to share our Impact Report for the last financial year, resulting in $314,497.00 worth of kindness invested in the community.
Every kiwi deserves kindness. It’s our mission to make it easy for people to help others, turn kindness into action and ensure every kiwi has what they need to thrive and not just survive. It's a big mission but we're only just getting started.
Thank you for being a part of it.
Read it here: www.kindness.co.nz/news/impact-report 👊🏼
Over the last 5 weeks, you raised $7,665 and donated 1241 pairs of Winter pyjamas to children.
From our community and with a little help from our friends at Cadbury Dairy Milk, 17,300 Easter eggs were delivered to families through 7 organisations, the NZ Police, Social Workers and Food Banks.
Thank you for believing that everyone deserves kindness and for helping us bring joy to families this Easter. ❤️
Hey all,
Firstly thanks so much for the recent donations for lockdown emergency supplies for families. Lockdown is so much tougher when you're already struggling day to day. Each lockdown is a strain on food, resource, utilities and income for so many reasons. Kids who get breakfast and lunch at school and centres are now at home, needing 3 meals a day. Power bills go higher. Toiletries get used more. Parents lose jobs, hours at jobs they manage to keep because not everyone has the privilege of working from home. Please donate if you can to help us put food in bellies this week.
But here is our February update, and what $50K worth of donations looks like...
The kindness keeps coming!
It’s been a huge month with so many awesome things achieved, deliveries, connections made and projects started. There’s lot of amazing things going on “behind the scenes” (I really hate that saying, it sounds so incredibly wanky but here I am using it) - but it’s true, there is. I’ve never been so busy before and it’s so wonderful.
Here is the kindness we spread in February:
1. We organised shelves from Mitre10 x 6 for Mummys in Need. Thank you Mitre10!
2. We bought 30 bins for Mummys in Need for the shelves to help them get more donations out.
3. We collected, washed and sorted donated 425 pieces of women’s clothing to MDM Refuge.
4. We collected and donated 15 pairs of great shoes to MDM Refuge.
5. Mummys in Need donated 65 lunch boxes and bags to us for the MDM Refuge for our Back to School Drive.
6. Tegel gave us our first 300kg chicken donation which we spread to Kai Avondale, MDM Refuge and Give a Kid a Blanket. Then they gave us another one at the end of February, 700kgs of Chicken in one month! Bloody love you Tegel.
7. We helped a family in need who had gone through terrible grief with a koha of $1250 to help with groceries and school supplies for the children.
8. We purchased 4 chest freezers and fridges from Monaco for Kai Avondale and MDM Refuge coming to around $2100. Thank you so much Monaco for the amazing discount!
9. We donated 6 x 150L containers full of clothes, baby clothes, baby items to MDM Refuge mothers. Another 550 pieces of clothing, 300 nappies and 260 baby toiletries, bib, dummies, shoes and hats. Eek, so much counting and sorting. Thank you!
10. We fundraised, collected and donated 7x 150L Bins of NEW and lovely toiletries to MDM Refuge, Kai Avondale and Free Guys with over 2300 individual pieces! Nuts!
11. We purchased $1250 worth of sausages and mince to go to Feed the Streets, Free Guys and MDM Refuge with a retail value of much, much higher thanks to Reuben from Aussie Butcher New Lynn.
12. We donated 6 huge boxes of good quality meat from Aussie Butcher New Lynn to Feed the Streets, Free Guys and MDM Refuge. Reuben donated over 500 products in February, for free.
13. We collected and donated 2 x prams, 2 x car seats and other baby items to Mummys in Need.
14. Our members cooked 60 home made, nourishing meals for MDM Refuge and Kura Kai.
15. We bought $350 pantry items for Bernie & Donna's pantry at Give a Kid a Blanket and they gave us tampons for the Refuge.
16. Took the refuge families $200 worth of food for the last day of lockdown for families to have lunch/dinner that night.
17. Purchased $350 worth of Eggs & Jarmies from our donated money for the Easter drive to get us started!
18. We made a $200 donation to I Got Your Back Pack to help them send out more packs to families affected by domestic violence.
19. We bought $300 worth of cleaning products and treat foods for I Got your Back Pack’s safe house.
20. We bought bedding of around $200 for I Got Your Back Pack’s Safe House.
21. We bought and donated 150Kgs worth of Tegel Chicken from Service Foods to Feed the Streets, Free Guys, MDM Refuge and Give a Kid a Blanket and Pop Up Communal Kai.
22. We picked up a HUGE haul of donations from a member and her business Nautica Shipping & Logistics AND a huge bundle of toiletries and home cooked meals. So so generous.
23. We took Free Guys $300 worth of food in the last weekend of February and washing powder kindly donated from Koha Apparel, along with more toiletries.
All in all, we supported people in our network with $49,740.88 worth of resources and money.
Thank you so much for all your kindness, generosity and support. It’s because of you that we’re able to keep spreading kindness and I’m so grateful you see the value in what we do.
In order to keep doing this stuff above, we need more money. If you can think of us next time you want to donate to a cause, or if you can go without your coffee money one day a week, give it to us so we can do MORE of the stuff above. www.kindness.co.nz/donate
If you can’t donate, then consider sharing our pages, our posts, our drives with your friends and family because that’s the way we grow and can impact more people in need, one act of kindness at a time.
Sarah xx
We're absolutely blown away at the response from our Easter campaign, that we didn't even post on here! Such an insane amount of donations (so many we've trended on the Givealittle home page!), shares, and businesses getting involved (yay Newshub and Auckland Hospital!).
We are just so grateful you all see the value in giving children memories, and treats, just as much as providing the essentials. The thought of 1,000 (let's do more!?) babes with their very very own pair of warm Pjs and an Easter egg makes my heart so happy.
Please keep sharing, collecting, donating and head to www.kindness.co.nz/news/easter for more info!
Sarah xx
January 2021 Kindness Update
How odd that January is almost over already. It’s been a really busy month for what is traditionally a quiet month for most people.
Thanks to you, this has been a great month and this is what we’ve collectively made possible!
We’ve seen a lot of member growth, with a great increase in Weekly Supporters and donations. Thank you so much for believing in what we do and for having a heart to support people in the community.
January has been about connections, meeting new people and beginning relationships to support their mahi.
Things of note:
Our Back to School campaign raised and donated $4,500 worth of stationery and Warehouse vouchers for mothers and children at MDM Refuge. Thank you to The Warehouse Westgate for $500 of vouchers for mums to buy shoes. We decided to give vouchers because vouchers mean choice, and choice provides dignity. Also what if your favourite colour lunchbox is pink but you get given a blue one!?
Our campaign for supporting former Refugee children through The Red Cross was slower than expected. Supporting refugees in our country is something myself and our board are very passionate about so we aren’t sure why this didn’t resonate with people, but we are donating $5,000 because uniforms provide community and these new kiwis are part of our community.
We supported Bernie & Donna at Give a Kid a Blanket with $500 groceries for their base pantry, and $450 worth of duvets for their duvet stocks. We are going to put aside budget every month for this charity, because they are the real deal. They support a lot of people with zero judgement, genuine compassion and they are our kind of people. Kind people!
We donated $250 to The Mum’s Clique, a charity that supports thousands of mums through ALL sorts. They had to close their base because of all the Covid cases so we donated a little bit to help over the weekend of closure. We are going to meet the founder Abbey this week to see how we can support them more.
We meet Dayne and Anne from Avondale, and heard about all their amazing food initiatives that support and feed the West Auckland community. They operate Feed the Streets, Kai Avondale, Free Guys and Breakfast club and we are really excited to work with them. We took $500 worth of groceries to top up Free Guys at our first visit and will put budget aside monthly to support them as well. Both are really active in the community and do incredible work.
We donated $250 to a fundraiser for Gabby’s Starlit Hope for a boy with a terminal diagnosis who needs a holiday with his family.
We filled up 3 Community Pantries in West Auckland with lots of yummy kai totally around $300.
We fundraised for and have $1250 for a family who were affected by tragedy so we can fill their fridge and pantry for a month.
KURA KAI:
This connection deserves it’s own paragraph but I’ve been working behind the scenes for a month or two with Makaia Carr to act as a fiscal sponsor for Kura Kai, Makaia’s Charitable Trust. Kura Kai donates chest freezers in schools around the country and then an army of volunteers keep them stocked with fresh, nutritious, hearty meals. Kids can then go and grab a meal to take home for dinner, relieving some stress on parents who sometimes need support in providing food. The concept is amazing and instantly impactful.
We are receiving $35,000 from The Newman’s Own Foundation on behalf of Kura Kai for them to further grow the organisation. We received $10,000 of that to support our food initiatives within the MDM Refuge community.
Most importantly is the relationship starting to build with Makaia and Kura Kai. We strongly back and believe in what the organisation is doing and the impact it could have nationwide is potentially really huge, so we’re excited to work with Makaia!
Finally, there’s so much more coming up that we’re excited to share with you, so many upcoming projects and so many amazing relationships with new partners and businesses that will bring so much kindness to so many people.
Thank you again. Keep giving, keep sharing and keep talking about the Kindness Collective so that we can grow and spread more kindness to more people.
Sarah x
Comedy for Kindness!
We had a hilariously good time at our first fundraising event, Comedy for Kindness and raised $2667! 🙏🏼
Massive thanks to the amazing comedians that gave up their time and talents to help us raise money for families in need this Christmas.
Huge thank you to Tim Batt - Comedian/Man for organising the whole event and hosting, Chris Parker, James RoqueLiv McKenzie, Eli Matthewson, Becky Umbers, Natalie Samy and Ray O'Leary for performing, we are really grateful!
Thanks to everyone who bought tickets and showed up to support us as well. So much fun, let’s do it again!
I know it’s the 17th of December and I’m only writing our November update now, but hopefully you’ll forgive me after I’ve written our first Christmas update. It’s been a busy few weeks!
November was essentially all about preparation for Christmas and a few other little bits and pieces supporting families in need through various organisations.
We ran a birthday fundraiser for my 40th birthday and donated $1800 worth of yummy food to our Refuge famlly to stock up the safe house pantries. That was the best birthday gift ever!
We supported our friends at Gabby’s Starlit Hope with Countdown vouchers for a family who’s child was in a New Plymouth Hospital and needed some help with food. We worked with Family Works to support a really special family who were moving to start a new life and needed grocery vouchers to help set them up for success.
We bought extra games and presents for Christmas for our Refuge community as there’s always always extra children that end up without them that arrive after we’ve done our big drop off day.
But my favourite story from November was funding art supplies for a Counselor to build relationships and trust through play with high-needs, vulnerable children in a very low decile Primary School in Auckland. The school doesn't have funds to provide resource for the Counsellor so we bought $400 worth to last them a few months. I’ve heard already that they’ve been greatly loved and used.
Thank you for supporting our mission to bring kindness to people who need it most.
Sarah x
October has been all about connections, with lots of new friends made and donations given.
A few of the new friends we’ve made is Tayla from Mummys in Need and Bernie and Donna from Give A Kid A Blanket. Both incredibly effective charities supporting families in Auckland and really great people. Our kind of kind people. We are really excited to be able to support their work.
I was also really excited to meet Alaina from 10x10 last week. I attended the 10x10 Philanthropy event in Auckland in the last week of October with Charlie, one of our members. “10×10 Philanthropy is a live crowdfunding charity, comprised of young professionals, who raise funds for innovative grassroots charities by hosting 100+ guests at inspiring events. Established in Sydney in 2013, 10×10 and its network of millennial and Gen Z volunteers have grown their operations to 12 major cities around the world – expanding in Australia to Adelaide, Brisbane, Melbourne, and Canberra, and internationally in Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, London, Hong Kong, Vancouver, and Auckland”.
It was a fantastic night and it raised $20K for 3 deserving charities, Orange Sky, The Aunties and Baskets of Hope. We’re hoping to be able to pitch to be one of them in 2021!.
I was asked to go in to Radio Rhema and Life FM to have a chat about the Kindness Collective, despite not being religious they welcomed me in with open arms and were really lovely! Thanks so much to our new friend Lee for your time.
This month donations have gone to:
Flowers for some very deserving teachers for World Teachers Day
Gabby’s Starlit Hope - $200 Christmas Hamper for a family in Hospital over Christmas
Nesti Dante Soap donation to Give a Kid a Blanket & Mummys in Need
Mummys in Need donation - Pram, Cot, Moses Baket, Stroller
Mummys in Need donation - $300 worth of nappies and wipes
Autism NZ - $550 Donation of Samsung Galaxy Tablet, Hospitality Vouchers, Countdown Voucher, Chocolates, Coffee for families for Christmas.
Mummys in Need - $300 Grant for family affected by a house fire
$100 Givealittle Donation for baby with open heart surgery
Give A Kid a Blanket - $500 donation of food items for Christmas drives, donations of blankets, t shirts
8 Bags of baby clothing for Mummys in Need families
We’ve had some amazing businesses get in touch with incredible donations for Christmas!
A HUGE thank you to: Impact PR, Fix & Fogg, Nesti Dante, Zuru Toys, Milo, Kit Kat, National Mini Storage, Daily Good, New World, Kiwi Wheat Bags, Pops NZ, Poi Yeah!.
Only 4 weeks to go until our Christmas Drive collection happens, then 5 weeks till the Taonga Trust ECE parties and then all the pressie and food parcel drops off. We really need people to still donate items for the food parcels and grocery vouchers for families for Christmas. Please get in touch and hit up the donate page on our website!
Sarah xx
It was my 40th birthday last week and earlier in the week I asked my Facebook friends to donate $5 as a birthday gift so we could top up the Refuge safe houses pantries, hoping to get to $500. Like usual I was blown away by people's generosity, so instead everyone donated $1800 worth of groceries which got delivered to the Women's Refuge Safe Houses on Friday morning. Thank you SO much to everyone who contributed, nothing makes me happier than knowing beautiful little babes get Milo and Coco Pops for breakfast. ❤️ Sarah xx
It's that time again! Christmas is on the way and this year we're going larger than ever because we know 2020 has been tougher than ever. This year we're bringing Christmas kindness to 500 children and their families from the MDM Women's Refuge and the Taonga Charitable Trust, who have experienced real hardship this year.
For the last seven years The Kindness Collective has delivered Christmas to the MDM Refuge Group. The MDM Refuge is one of the biggest and busiest independent Womens' Refuge groups in New Zealand and we work with them on an on-going basis to provide support through the year.
This Christmas we're also supporting Taonga Charitable Trust for 200 children at their seven ECE centres across South, Central and West Auckland. Taonga Charitable Trust is doing incredibly important work, offering high quality education and support with social services for families. We want to give the children a Christmas to remember, where they feel the love and support of their local community; we believe this is what it's all about.
If you want to buy a present for a child, help us provide food parcels and grocery vouchers, then please head to www.kindness.co.nz/donate, or contact us on hello@kindness.co.nz. If you know a kind business owner then please put us in touch with them as well!
Let's make this a Christmas to remember, for the right reasons. Please share with your friends, family, workmates, we need as many people as possible to help end 2020 a bit better than it started.
Sarah xx
Here's what we've been up to at the Kindness Collective Foundation!
Earlier in September we were contacted with a specific request for a Mum & two babies that had just arrived in the MDM Refuge Safe House with nothing. Mum couldn’t get access to any assistance as her Visa was tied up with her partners, and she had to leave. She had no phone and her kids needed food and clothes. In 12 hours we raised $3,000 and bought her a new phone with credit, clothes for her babes, Warehouse vouchers, Countdown vouchers and then over the next week donated nappies, more clothes, a cot, sleep wear, a baby carrier and heaps more. This truly cemented that we’re building a wonderful community of kindness and that what we do really does matter. We also donated lots of great pre-loved items to the Refuge over the month, along with new clothes, vouchers and a huge donation from Wiltshire of new kitchenware.
We also went to visit and meet the Taonga Charitable Trust team and I believe you don’t go into any new relationship without taking a gift, so we took $1000 worth of grocery vouchers, $1000 worth of new blankets and clothes. Since then we’ve donated a bed, more clothes and resource for more bedding for the Teen Parent Unit. I’m really looking forward to supporting them at Christmas!
This month we also supported Gabby’s Starlit Hope with a grocery delivery to one of their families with a child currently going through treatment for Cancer in Starship. We also donated $500 towards Super Hero Bravery Capes for kids in Oncology Wards.
One of the things I find so amazing about this charity, is that Gabby, even when she was really sick, put her illness aside to be kind to other children going through Cancer. What’s blows me away is that after losing her darling girl, her Mother, turned the worst possible pain and darkness into something so beautiful. By continuing Gabby’s legacy through the charity, she is the epitome of kindness and this is why we support them.
Sarah xx
