Hospice West Auckland Fathers’ Day Memorial Planting—2 September 2012

Hospice West Auckland provides specialist palliative care to the people of west Auckland during terminal or life-limiting illnesses, and today CUE Haven was privileged to host a memorial planting day for people who have lost fathers and other loved ones.

The fund raising event for Hospice West Auckland was organised by HWA’s Events and Communications Manager Kathryn van Beek and Social Care Manager Trish Fleming.  Hospice West Auckland publicised the planting day in advance and offered people the opportunity to come out and plant a tree today or, if they couldn’t make it, a tree would be planted on their behalf.  Nearly 70 people came out and 68 trees were planted.  Requests for trees to be planted came from as far as the UK.

Kathryn provided flags so that people coming would have no trouble finding us.

As the group arrived, people got acquainted over tea and refreshments.

Once everyone had arrived, Trish gave a welcome and overview of the programme for the afternoon and Mahrukh and Tom talked about the CUE Haven project and gave a safety briefing for people who would be planting trees.

Afterward, Reverend Fred Holloway gave a welcome and Maori blessing.

And we all went up to the planting site where we quickly planted the trees.

The symbol of the West Auckland Hospice is the beautiful kowhai flower and we planted six kowhai trees among the kahikateas.

Afterwards, everyone enjoyed afternoon tea and snacks.

In May, 2012, the West Auckland Hospice did a similar planting on Mother’s Day and we look forward to making Mothers’ & Fathers’ Day plantings an annual event and contributing to the Hospices’ fund raising efforts.

We’d like to thank Kathryn and Trish for all their hard work in organising the planting day and for all their efforts today to make it a successful and meaningful experience for everyone involved.

We look forward to having everyone return to CUE Haven for a leisurely visit to explore the grounds and to see how their trees have grown.

xxxxx