Sunshine Day
13 January 2011 - Our December Sunshine Day was a fantastic way to wrap up the year. We had a "decorate your office" competition, with a Christmas theme, which brought the whole building alive with Santas, snow and reindeer. Glenys from Barnardos came to visit us, and we heard stories of the children and families who will be helped by our donations. Our Customer Experience team lead the fundraising this month, with hamper "rudolf" raffles. Some of the Christmas decorations around the office were unbelieveable, with a Santa's grotto complete with the man in red, a Santa's toy factory, the 12 Days of Christmas, and lots of chimneys, snow, snowmen, reindeer and Christmas Trees. Any department store would have been happy with our decorations in their window display!
17 November 2010 - Families and children with heart conditions are at the centre of our thoughts this month, as our donations will be given to Heart Children's family support progamme. 450 children will have open heart surgery this year at Auckland's Paediatric Cardiology unit, with 90% of them expected to live to adulthood. Through the fantastic support of Heart Children, the families receive help in all sorts of ways, such as accommodation, keeping their families together across long distances, counselling, meals and help to get through the long hospital stays in Auckland. The Heart Children team includes both family support workers and enthusiastic volunteers, in all corners of the country. We fundraised with a "Melbourne Cup in Takapuna" Day at the office, including a cake stall, quiz, hat competition and lots of prizes. This month our fundraising was co-ordinated by our HR and New Business teams - thank you! The funds raised on Sunshine Day were matched by Sovereign. We're proud to be helping the team at Heart Children, who came to visit us and tell us all about the families who our donations will make a difference to.
15 October 2010 - This month our donations will help the Dyslexia Foundation of New Zealand to continue their ongoing work. They help people to make simple changes to improve the learning, living and working environments for New Zealanders with dyslexia. Their 4D programme in schools helps to guide teachers on effective action to benefit children with dyslexia. They are encouraged to notice where issues are occurring and adjust the classroom environment or teaching style to help children reach their full potential.
Our Sunshine day activities included a Commonwealth Games Quiz, raffles, a "guess the baby photo" competition and a home made baking sale! Thanks to our Distribution team for organising our fundraising activities - the funds raised on Sunshine Day were matched by Sovereign. We're proud to be helping Dyslexia New Zealand, and their fantastic programme.
16 September 2010 - This month our donations will help SPELD to subsidise some of their 2,000 students to receive assessments and tuition - to allow them to share the excitement of learning. Our Business Technology team led our Sunshine Day fundraising with raffles, a t-shirt design competition in the flavour of NZ Fashion week, and a morning tea bake sale that Jo Seagar would be proud of. Lyn, Jeremy and Sharon from SPELD came to visit our office, and shared their stories of the young people they help, and what a difference the tuition from SPELD makes in their lives. We are proud to be helping SPELD, and supporting their fantastic team across New Zealand.
18 August 2010 - This month we’ve been helping the Child Cancer Foundation to provide practical and emotional support to children with cancer, and their families. During our Sunshine Day our finance team coordinated fundraising with a mystery tombola, a luxury hamper raffle, and a lunchtime sports quiz. We were touched by the stories from Jade and Megan of Child Cancer, who visited us at Smales Farm and told of the journeys some Kiwi children go through, bravely fighting cancer. We are proud to be helping Child Cancer, and supporting the fantastic work they do every day in our community.
