Lisa’s Wish Charitable Trust–1 November 2015

Lisa’s Wish Trust is an organisation conceived by the late Lisa Knapman-Smith, a wife and mother who passed away from cancer in 2009 at the age of 29.  Lisa’s vision was that the Trust would provide support and activities for young children whose parents or caregivers have been afflicted by cancer.

The Trust has regular day outings for young children and encourages and supports their participation in the William Pike Challenge Awards (WPCA). The vision of the WPCA is to have primary and intermediate school children embracing new challenges, enjoying the great outdoors, engaging with their community, interacting with positive role models and being ready to take on whatever life throws at them. In addition to participating in 8 outdoor activities and learning a new sport or hobby, WPCA participants also have to do 20 hours of community service during the year.

Today we were delighted to host 5 young students doing their WPCA community service – Alistair, Clay, Joachim, Tahnee and Zayd.  They were accompanied by family members and supporters of the Lisa’s Wish Trust —  Cort, Eloise, Ian, Joanne, Kimo, Neil, Nikita, Rosemarie, Russel, Sinda and Yolarn and today they helped us out by potting up seedlings in the nursery.

Also joining us for the day was our amiable volunteer, Adrian.

The group arrived shortly after nine and we got acquainted over morning tea. Mahrukh then gave the group a brief introduction to CUE Haven and the activities for the day. Thomas gave the group a safety briefing before we all headed to the nursery.

Today we were potting up miro, pukatea, rimu, tanekaha and pukatea seedlings and after a demo by Mahrukh the group went to work.

As the seedlings were potted up, the young volunteers stacked the pots on to crates and Rosemarie placed them in the shaded open area of the nursery.

In just a few hours the group had potted up 450 seedlings!  A fantastic effort!!

The group then helped us clean up the nursery before heading back to the cottage for lunch.

After lunch we took the group on a short tour of the property.

The young students doing the WPCA were particularly interested in the chess board and chessmen and checkers pieces made by the older students who do their Duke of Edinburgh’s Hillary Award (DoEHA) gold residential at CUE Haven.

It was a wonderful end to a perfect day.

In January 2015 Lisa’s Wish Trust (LWT) organised a 3 day camp for older students at CUE Haven and they established the Lisa’s Wish Grove in the wetlands. Today four kahikatea trees were planted there as memorials for departed loved ones. This included a tree in memory of Lisa which was planted by her husband Ian and their children Nikita and Cort.

LWT will be having their annual camp for older students at CUE Haven in January 2016 and the plan is to build a boardwalk in Lisa’s Wish Grove and connect it to the main boardwalk which traverses the wetlands.

We’d like to thank Nestle NZ for their continued support of our activities at CUE Haven and for providing Nestle Hot Chocolate, Milo and Nescafe Menu drinks which are much enjoyed and were appreciated by everyone today.

Also Thank You to Daltons for generously providing Daltons Potting Mix which we used today. We really appreciate their support.

A big thank you to Rosemarie Knapman-Smith, trustee and administrator of the Lisa’s Wish Trust for organising today’s event and for all her help today.

And many many thanks to everyone who came out today and helped with potting up the seedlings. We really appreciate your efforts.

We especially want to wish the students doing the WPCA all the best with completing their awards and we hope to see you back at CUE Haven at one of the annual Lisa’s Wish Trust camps or at a DoEHA gold residential!

The seedlings potted today will be nurtured till they are ready to be planted in the field and will add to the growing native forest that is being cultivated at CUE Haven. We look forward to having you all back at CUE Haven to see the growing trees.

Thanks again!!