Harbour Hospice celebrates 40 years of rich volunteer history

This year marks the 40th anniversary of Harbour Hospice. What started as a completely volunteerrun service is now a multi-disciplined operation staffed by 230 professionals, supported by 1200 volunteers and covering a region extending from Devonport to Te Hana.

Without the grit of those early volunteers, Harbour Hospice would not be where it is today. To begin with, the charity’s three distinct communities –North Shore, Hibiscus Coast and Warkworth/ Wellsford – were served by three separate groups of volunteers linked by the North Shore branch of the Auckland Hospice Foundation Trust.

Hibiscus Coast’s early hospice services were driven by Carmen and Bob Urban, an Orewabased couple inspired to set up a hospice after visiting California and seeing the good work hospice did there.

With the help of North Shore Hospice’s first paid staff member, Volunteer Coordinator Julian Court, Bob and Carmen set up a volunteer group and training. By 1987 the group was caring for its first patients and families in their homes and had set up its first bereavement support group.

As the community began to rely more on Hospice the group purchased its first building in 1993, a home in Pohutakawa Ave, Orewa that the vendors, the James family, kindly offered to Hospice for just over half its market value.

In 1994 the group hired its first paid nurse, Wendy Lashbrooke, and in 1997 opened its first hospice shop in Orewa. The shop proved so successful two more were opened, in Whangaparaoa and Silverdale. Today, they and Harbour Hospice’s 14 other shops, raise a third of the charity’s annual funding needs.

In 2005 the land for Hospice’s current Hibiscus Coast site at John Dee Cres, Red Beach was purchased, and construction began on a purposebuilt building. Fundraising had been behind every success that Hospice had enjoyed, so a dedicated fundraising committee, the Hibiscus Hospice Women’s Committee chaired by Jan Adams, swung into action to fundraise for this project. Their extraordinary efforts raised hundreds of thousands towards the project, and beyond.

In 2018 Hibiscus Coast Hospice merged with hospices on the North Shore and Warkworth/Wellsford to form Harbour Hospice, as it is known today.

Karyn Henger | Harbour Hospice harbourhospice.org.nz

Roger and Nicky Lewis

Quinovic North Harbour

M 027 4749 108

T (09) 448 5819

E roger@quinovic-northharbour.co.nz quinovic.co.nz/north-harbour

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