Fonterra volunteers roll up their sleeves to help Cholmondeley Children’s Centre

Cholmondeley Children’s Centre has been lucky enough to have two Fonterra teams on site in the past week, helping to refresh its volunteer house and garden.

Every year Cholmondeley gets three intakes of international volunteers who travel from around the world to the centre in Governors Bay, to gain experience working with children.

“Our volunteers come from far and wide and it is fantastic Fonterra could help upgrade the space to make it feel more like home, when the volunteers are so far from home,” said Cholmondeley Children’s Centre General Manager, Toni Tinirau.

A hard-working Fonterra team gave up their time on Thursday to plant a small orchard outside the volunteer house, to provide fruit for years to come.

“To be able to come here and do this, it really refreshes your perspective on life and shows you what’s important - and it’s really rewarding work,” said Fonterra Farm Relationship Advisor Cameron Neale.

Fonterra provided raspberry canes, blueberry plants, miniature apricots, pears, apples, plums, miniature peach, feijoa and strawberry plants.

Working alongside a group of Cholmondeley tamariki, the team also replanted the centre’s vegetable patches.

On Tuesday a group of 20 Fonterra volunteers arrived to give Cholmondeley’s volunteer whare a spruce up.

Fonterra L4 Forklift Driver Geoffrey Robinson said the team wanted to help out where they could, “when we’ve got the opportunity to do something for others we’ve got to step in.”

Finesse Painting and Decorating kindly donated painting supplies to assist with repainting the lounge and dining area.

Mitre 10 MEGA Ferrymead also showed their support for Cholmondeley by donating a new oven and dryer to replace existing appliances that were no longer fit for purpose.

“We are so grateful for the support of local organisations coming on board to improve Cholmondeley facilities, which in turn allows us to better support our community,” said Toni Tinirau.

Cholmondeley will be welcoming a new intake of volunteers from Germany on Friday.

The volunteers will join the Cholmondeley Children’s Centre whānau for six months, with an opportunity to extend by a further six months.

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