Accomplishments and Thanks
This is the time of year where it’s good to look back and see all that has been accomplished. Mothers Helpers registered as a Charity in May of this year so that we were official! We also established three Board members: Kristina Paterson (Chair), Amanda Donald (Treasurer) and Asha Ines. We hope to nominate also Onur Yilmaz to our Board who has a GM position with a large corporation and has been volunteering his expertise and help with things like recruitment, marketing, contacts and funding applications. Amanda has been busy assisting with funding applications, administration, keeping of accounts and budget projections. And Asha has been lending her time to our Networking meeting. Kristina has been busy in overseeing the whole of Mothers Helpers including receiving and responding to referrals, visiting mothers and providing an assessment, referrals and follow-up as well as co-ordinating and recruiting our volunteers. Our thanks to each of our Board members for the work that they do voluntarily and our congratulations to Amanda who had baby girl Cassidy Elaine at 3.9kg on 10th December!
I’d also like to acknowledge the following people for their help that they have offered to us voluntarily:
Karen Rouse – administration help earlier in the year and assisting with Charity registration
Erin Taylor – help with administration and work on the website
Alex Carter (Spruce Ltd) – graphic design help and designing the website virtually from scratch including all the bells and whistles that go with that!
Gavin McQuoid & Panprint Labels – supplying printing of 1000 brochures, 1000 fliers and 500 business cards free of charge!
Altezano Cafe – all coffee supplies for our “Mumspace Cafe” earlier in the year
Digital Spot Printing – printing of “Mumspace Cafe” fliers
West Wave Aquatic Leisure Centre supporting our “Mumspace Cafe”
Shore City Elim for providing a faithful volunteer for one of our mums
Lucy Reade (Life Coach) – for providing her services free of charge to all our volunteers in support of what we do
and the many others who volunteered their time, money and skills for the benefit of “Mumspace Cafe” and “Mothers Helpers”
Special thanks to for all those who participated in the Networking Meeting ‘Mothers Helpers’ hosted for all those involved in ante-natal/post-natal maternity services from community agencies through to hospital services. It was a very successful event and we look forward to future meetings so that we can improve our referral processes and our services to women and their families.
Our most important accomplishment of course, is the work that we have been able to do with our mums in assisting them recover from postnatal depression or preventing them from experiencing it through our practical help and support. This was made possible because of every one of the volunteers, helpers and donators above.
Where to From Here?
In 2012 ‘Mothers Helpers’ hopes to start cafes in various locations around Auckland one day per week for each location where mums with postnatal depression or at-risk of postnatal depression can drop in for coffee, support and a chat. We would like to be able to provide a free creche so mums can have some time out, a foodbank and clothing swap service, divorce recovery and parenting workshops and one-on-one assessments for those wanting practical help from ‘Mothers Helpers.’
We would also like to continue the work that we are doing providing at-risk mothers with adequate support. In order to do this, we need to be successful with our funding applications, donations from those that are able to give to this cause, partnering churches to supply the venue and take up the opportunity to help mothers, and we need volunteers.
If you would like to help in any one of these areas above, please contact us.
Merry Christmas, God bless you and keep you safe over this holiday period,
Kristina Paterson
