CHUR! Supporting Upside whānau during lockdown

Upside saw an area of need for young people, as Aotearoa quickly found ourselves back in Level 4 Lockdown. As all children, and parents/caregivers, need to find ways to school from home and entertain themselves, the concept of ‘Chur Packs’ came about. Aiming to provide forms of activity, entertainment and fun for young people when they needed it most.

In less than 24 hours a number of generous donors ensured that each and every one of Upside’s young people would be receiving a ‘Chur Pack’ filled with activities, crafts and entertainment!

 

 

Thank you to the Upside community for quickly making this a reality for these young people. Along with goodies for the kids (thanks to support from OfficeMax), the team worked with existing community partners to provide essential food parcels for whānau with deliveries. 

 

As Chur Pack items began arriving at Dave’s (CEO) home, his bubble got onto packing, inflating, and saying goodbye to most of the lounge! 

 

 

This week the Upside team turned into delivery drivers, and packed their cars full (literally in Fleur’s case) to ensure these reached whānau after 14 days in Alert Level 4 Lockdown. Practising social distancing, parcels were received with excitement, relief and appreciation.

 

 

It is thanks to the generosity of special donors towards Chur Packs; essential food parcels providers as coordinated with Rakau Tautoko, The Village Trust, and VisionWest Community Trust; and OfficeMax’s additional support that families felt this extra aroha from the community.

 

A number of families shared their appreciation, saying: 

 

With majority of the parcels delivered on Aotearoa’s Random Acts of Kindness Day, thank you to each supporters for choosing to #BeKind at this time.