Wrapping Whānau in Aroha this Christmas

After watching a media story in the last 48 hours reporting whānau sleeping overnight outside an Auckland Marae for food parcels and toys, Ngā Whare Waatea in Mangere has received an extraordinary and unforeseen gift out of the blue.

Stanley Street, a full-service creative agency joined forces with the New Zealand Herald to offer the Marae a full page full colour advertisement free of charge. The advert will run tomorrow Tuesday 17 December to raise funds for the Auckland City Mission.

Ngā Whare Waatea is one of two marae in a special partnership with Auckland City Mission that has in the last four days collectively distributed over 3,000 food parcels and toys to whānau in need across four sites in Tāmaki Makaurau that include; Papakura Marae, Eden Park and Vision West in Glen Innes.

The communications team at Manukau Urban Māori Authority, based at the Marae, collaborated with Stanley Street on a campaign concept that encourages the public to donate online at aucklandcitymission.org.nz/donate. Funds will go towards food parcels and gifts for children.

“Stanley Street came up with several concepts – one was based on the action of wrapping. Our kaimahi staff suggested using the symbolic concept of a korowai cloak wrapping aroha around whānau. They pitched the idea to Tony Kake, CEO of Papakura Marae and Chris Farrelly, the Auckland City Missioner who loved it,” says Wyn Osborne, Chief Executive of the Manukau Urban Māori Authority.

“We consider it to be our contribution as Marae to boost the resources of the Auckland City Mission which is the backbone of the entire operation. Think of it as coming from a ‘mana motuhake’ self-determining perspective. For whānau, by whanau, with whānau in the spirit of helping our wider community.”

Little nine year old Maia Harris, Ngāti Hine stars in the campaign. Her Mum, Kaylem after less than 24 hours-notice drove her daughter with her own korowai from Whangārei to the studio in Parnell for the shoot as she felt that passionate about backing the cause.

The owner of the agency that has designed national campaigns for clients such as Whānau Ora Commissioning Agency saw it as the perfect opportunity to give back.

“This is the time of year when many whānau struggle. We wanted to use our creative resources and business relationships to support Auckland City Mission to help make this Christmas one we can all enjoy,” says owner of Stanley Street, Greg Partington.

The ‘8 day of Christmas – Kirihimete i a Waatea’ event at Nga Whare Waatea has four more days to run until this Friday.

Other substantial donations to the Marae during the week have included 1400 sausages from former All Black Shane Howarth’s Fresh Choice store in Mangere, 800 ice creams from Tip Top, several large pop-up marquees from Mitre 10 Mangere and hundreds of bottles of water from Countdown Mangere.

ENDS

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