Good morning friends,
I came across this article dated 26 September 2015. It reminded me that since 2014 we have remained true to dedicating every possible hour and every possible resource to transforming the lives of our most vulnerable people.
Some of you may remember Tim Tairi featured in this article. He is very special to us given he was one of the first who walked through our doors and one of the first to transform his life. Tim walked alongside TMNT as a very successful person, a very successful employee, and very successful in terms of his unbelievable journey and what he chose to overcome! Sadly Tim passed away a year or so ago, he lives on in our hearts. I send our love to his whanau.
5.5 years have passed since this article, we remain dedicated to the mahi and have grown in all respects. We started with 2.5 employees and a full time volunteer. We now have 10 employees full time and part time and 2 volunteers.
This story and all of the stories leading to now is evidence that the work we do in our community has critical value, is vital and transforms lives. We see it with our own eyes, the families/whanau of the men see it, and the children who belong to our men benefit from it.
Thank you to our community who has been on this journey with us:
Philanthropic funders who are poised to support our on going journey and growth.
Members of the public who donate household furniture or donations to assist in procuring items.
Schools who donate their mufti money.
People who come to our doors to offer useful items.
Our older citizens who in their shopping buy something extra to put into a collection and then deliver the goodies to us.
The services who deliver sessions on our site to ensure all of our men have access to all the tools they need and to deal with past trauma.
To Michelle Crook who donates hours and hours of her time to progress our strategic plan, that is not always easy as she encounters the same road blocks and curves in the road that we have over the years.
To Bay of Plenty District Health Board and the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development for registering the value for this hard to reach group and investing in that, we are grateful.
We have grown and we plan to keep the momentum going. If our people did not need us anymore then so-be-it however we are always busy and open to people wanting more for their lives and needing our help to get there.
Our community has grown since we opened and there are other organizations working alongside people who are homeless or on the cusp of homelessness. We are grateful to those providers. Each of our services are quite unique in terms of our mandates and models, visions and missions. We are acutely aware that not one size fits all therefore to make the biggest impact we must all fight the fight against systemic and generational trauma. We do not want to see these people in a strangle hold on our streets, any door is the right door in our view.
Thank you to everyone for being with our team on this journey.
