Northland community advocate Deirdre Ahu Photo: Supplied
When people need help, Northland community activist Deirdre Ahu takes action.
After discovering several elderly people without food at home, this month she launched the charity initiative Adopt A Granny.
Already, 15 seniors in Kaitaia are receiving regular fresh food deliveries and welfare checks from kaimahi (volunteers).
The programme is now underway in Whangarei and Alice Springs, too, and Ahu is hopeful it will soon be taken up in other regions where older people are doing it tough.
“My ultimate hope is that people in other communities will adopt the initiative and establish it in their hometown,” she tells Jesse Mulligan.
For three years ago, Ahu has been distributing donated food and household goods around Northland via the not-for-profit Kaitāia Whānau in Need.
Earlier this year, when the charity received a “special” donation of $3,000 worth of possum mink blankets, she wondered if local seniors might be the most suitable recipients.
“Off the cuff, I thought, they've got to go to our elderly citizens living in pension flats and also the ones that are living in the community.
“ I posted [on social media] and the PMs just came flooding in asking ‘Can my nan have one? etc’.”
So Ahu could be confident the blankets went directly into the hands of seniors, she spent two weeks hand-delivering them herself.
“A lot of the elderly citizens were so grateful, so happy, and just to see them snuzzle their face into the actual blanket, it was really heartwarming.”
Sadly, though, Ahu discovered that a number of the older people she visited - 4 out of 23 - had “next to no food or no food at all”.
“I finished my deliveries and I went home and I'm cooking my dinner and I'm sitting down to eat, and I'm thinking ‘Hang on a moment, the four elderly citizens that had no food are not going to have any dinner.
“I pondered, how many more in our community are going without food? I don't receive any funding, I financially can't afford to buy all the groceries, vegetables and fruit that would be required. How else can we do it?
“In the back of my mind, I did think - and probably not a good thought but I did think - where are our social services and what are they injecting their time and energy into, in terms of taking care of our elderly citizens?
“I could not dwell in that space. The job needed to be done and needed to be done straight away. I had that energy to get it up and running.”
When Ahu first posted about Adopt A Granny on Facebook, she was “absolutely flooded” with messages from people keen to be involved, including many who’d had nothing to do with community initiatives in the past.
The prerequisites for people keen to be a kaimahi with Adopt A Granny, she says, are compassion, commitment and a safe mode of transport.
As neither that charity or Kaitāia Whānau in Need receive funding, ongoing donations of fresh fruit and veggies, petrol vouchers and microwavable plastic food containers are required for Ahu and her team to continue helping Northlanders in need.
To register with Adopt A Granny or arrange a donation, email: adoptagranny2024@gmail.com
Donations can be made to Kaitāia Whānau in Need (bank account number: 38 9006 0083872 06) or at the Kaitāia Pak’nSave.
Shirley and Justin are kaimahi (volunteers) with the charity programme Adopt A Granny in Kaitaia Photo: Supplied
Arii - a kaimahi (volunteer) with the charity programme Adopt A Granny in Alice Springs Photo: Supplied
Bex - a kaimahi (volunteer) with the charity programme Adopt A Granny in Kaitaia Photo: Supplied
Jacqueline - a kaimahi (volunteer) with Adopt A Granny in Kaitaia Photo: Supplied
Mary - a kaimahi (volunteer) who runs the charity programme Adopt A Granny in Whangarei Photo: Supplied
