01.
what inspired the beginning of the kindness collective foundation? tell us your story
after my son was born i had postnatal depression. i found the first year of motherhood was not quite what i saw in the movies or read in books, and i found it quite hard. we started noticing my son was not like the other babies in our coffee group, and that he wasn't able to communicate or sleep. at 18 months old he was diagnosed with autism; so heading back to work, juggling depression, and a new diagnosis was quite challenging
i tried all the usual methods of lifting the dark fog of depression, but nothing seemed to work. one day i decided to donate the cans out of my cupboards, and i took them to the local independent women's refuge group in the same suburb where i lived. i was met with a smile and a hug and walked away with the most intense feeling of joy
i then started doing it more often, coercing my friends and whānau to collect and buy food too. this then led to making the trips to the refuge more frequently until it eventually became weekly. food soon turned into christmas presents, easter eggs, winter pjs, building gardens and filling houses for families affected by family violence
02.
how has the charity evolved and grown to be what is it now?
kindness collective was started back in 2014 as a small, behind-the-scenes, community group. it began with my family, then my friends, then their families, and it soon grew from 50 people to 500, to 5,000. we operated in a private facebook group, via email, and phone, there were no public social media pages or even a website
in 2019 i won the asb good as gold award and was awarded $10k for the group. very quickly we saw the good we could do with a bigger amount of cash at once. so in 2020, i decided to make it official and kindness collective became a registered charity
we now operate four major projects a year including the pj project and christmas joy store, and support multiple communities with day-to-day essentials. we have a community hub in mt eden which houses a food, toiletries, toy, and clothing bank and 6 regional coordinators around the country. we have over 105 community partners (including our wonderful refuge community after 10 years) and in total we've donated almost $7 million worth of resources to kids and whānau in need around aotearoa
we also just won new zealander of the year, for community of the year, at last week's awards which we're all really stoked about!
03.
what are some key projects that kindness collective foundation are providing for currently?
we've just launched the pj project, which is aiming to provide over 20,000 pairs of warm, winter pyjamas for kids all over the country. we also provide over 100 families a week with food, toiletries, clothing, baby essentials and more so this work is always on-going
the christmas joy store is also happening again in november for over 15,000 children too. the joy store is our social toy store, where parents and caregivers can choose gifts for their children that they know they're going to love, off the shelves for free
04.
how can we get involved and support your amazing efforts?
check out our website, join the pj project, donate if you can, and help us spread as much kindness as we can across aotearoa
what sarah's wearing
