“500 for 5” Fundraiser

Women are always at the start of life, and we are there at the end of life too.  We are there as caregivers, mothers, sisters, aunts, wives, daughters, and grandmothers.  Women are uniquely connected to the circle of life.  Today’s world avoids and is unfamiliar with the natural state of dying and death the way generations before us were not. We, as people, have established systems over time that sometimes allow us to avoid knowing, learning, and engaging with death as our mothers, grandmothers and great-grandmothers may once have done.

In New Zealand right now, there are over 25,000 charities supporting the living, the environment, animal welfare and to better the life we lead.  But amongst those thousands there is only one movement caring for our dying, and that is hospice.

North Haven is asking for 100 women to join a unique group – 500 for 5.  We are asking 100 women to pledge $500 a year for the next 5 years.  That’s only $10 a week to keep the dying in charge of their living and North Haven’s services available for everyone in our community.

You may not do this for yourself or for your family, as our whānau are not always in our own communities and are instead spread all over the world.

But this is for the 6-year-old with a brain tumour, his solo mother and 4 other siblings to stay and be cared for at North Haven Hospice, Te Whare Hūmārie.  It’s for the woman with less than $500 to her name wanting to ensure guardianship is in place for her teenage daughter before she dies.  It’s for the young man who wants to be as much as he can be for the days he has left in his life, and to support his sister and mother who are saying goodbye too soon, and it’s for the gentleman who has lived a long and simple life, now on his own with no one he can call on.

It’s for our neighbourhood, because if we can’t look after each other, who will?

As women, we can lead into the future and create a legacy for North Haven.  We can continue to be about so much more than death, to know and learn and engage and above all to be connected and caring for those dying around us in our local community and neighbourhood – will you be one of our 100?