Sharing some highlights from the newsletter.

MOTUEKA

Over the past months the club has been collecting a wide variety of good quality household goods for the Nelson Red Cross Refugee program which has sponsored families from Columbia and Myanmar.

At a recent club meeting, Annette Sirak spoke about her experience as a volunteer for the Refugee resettlement program. Annette and her group, organise a rental, set up the house and meet the family at the airport. The family has three weeks orientation and help with English lessons, setting up bank account, registering with Work & Income and the local health center as well as enrolling children at the local school. The families are also encouraged to have community involvement with families already settled. The local newspaper recently did a feature on a couple from Bhutan who arrived in Nelson ten years ago unable to speak any English and now run a successful fish and chip shop.

AVONHEAD

The I W Club of Avonhead commenced the year with a speaker from PIPS (Pregnancy, Infancy, Parenting, Support) formerly Pregnancy Help Canterbury Canty. The August and September meetings were cancelled due to the Covid. In October we had the pleasure of District Chairman Barbara join us and we held our AGM. 

In July Jillian Crossen put out a request for second hand uniform/winter clothing and knitted beanies for students at Burnside Primary School. The response was wonderful and certainly most appreciated by the school.

Val Morgan continues to knit Teddy Bears for the Christchurch Hospital and with contributions from other members we have donated a total of 900 Teddy Bears since we commenced this project nine years ago.

RANGIORA

One of our main charities is the Cholmondeley Centre at Governors Bay. Two of our members had made toilet bags, pencil cases and swimming bags and in June we got together and filled these bags with toiletries and pencils etc. Often children who go to Cholmondeley don’t own these personal items so they are given their very own bag to keep. In October Robyn Wallace, manager of the Chomondeley Centre came and spoke to us and told us about the work at the center, so it was nice to be able to give her a good supply of bags for the children.