Substantial donations for children’s ICU and food parcels

Substantial donations for children’s intensive care unit and food parcels

Martin Cheer, Chief Executive of Pub Charity Limited, was pleased to be able to report that in spite of the very challenging circumstances of the Level 4 lockdown, Pub Charity was able to make distributions to some really important causes in a truncated August funding round.

Recipients of funding included a $1 million grant to the Starship Foundation towards their fundraising efforts for the upgrade of the country’s only dedicated children’s ICU and $500,000 to the NZ Food Network for critically needed food parcels for South Auckland.

Mr Cheer said the Pub Charity team and their Venue Operators – hotels and taverns across New Zealand – were delighted to be able to support such worthy causes. “While we have an immediate need for relief due to the lockdown we also have Starship children’s hospital which provides specialised care and treatment for our most vulnerable children.”

Gavin Findlay of the NZ Food Network said that resources are really stretched at the moment, with huge numbers of families struggling. The demand for food parcels during lockdown is around 4–5 times normal volumes. The $500,000 dollars translates to an estimated 745,000 meals (based on 350g per meal).

The Starship Foundation faces the biggest and most vital fundraising challenge in its history – to expand the national children’s ICU and help future-proof it in the face of growing population numbers and complexity of cases. The expansion project will deliver a world-class facility with ten additional beds to benefit 1.25 million children under the age of 16 across New Zealand as well as additional facilities for families and staff.

“Pub Charity has been supporting communities across New Zealand for thirty years,” says Starship Foundation CE Aisha Daji Punga. “We are incredibly grateful to be a recipient of this generous grant which will go a long way to ensuring Starship can continue delivering world-class specialised care to our most critically sick and injured tamariki and their whānau.”

© Scoop Media