On Sunday 2nd September, we delivered hundreds of ‘Pick-me-up’ packs to neonatal dads on Father’s Day. The delivery of these packs provides a good case study into the organisation of our support activities – a number of which benefit from the philosophy ‘Many hands make light work‘. Like a lot of our support, this is a regular activity. By creating repeatable activity, we can look to enhance it year-on-year, plus each additional time the effort involved becomes more efficient – through existing contacts, banked learnings, etc. Here’s a quick behind the scenes overview on the 2018 Fathers Day packs . . .
- The planning starts months in advance when we reach out to previous supporters to see if they can assist us again – the help of our supporters is always appreciated, but never assumed. The organisations were contacted from the Wellington BizDojo on Tory street – great supporters of the community, they kindly provide us with space.
- Depending on the item (think food with best before dates), they start to arrive at various stages and are placed into our storage locker. This year for Father’s Day, we received the following items from generous supporting organisations:
- Vouchers for a Double Gourmet Pizza from HELL
- Powerbanks from Powershop
- Peanut slabs from Whittakers
- Licorice logs from RJs Licorice
- Wipes from Huggies
- Magazines from Bauer media
- Support resources – these had been printed prior with the proceeds of 2017 NZ Charity Golf Classic. Printing a good volume in order to benefit from a lower cost per unit. These resources included a printed copy of our ‘Reading to your baby‘ support resource, with the Kangaroo Cuddles support resource on the back. Both practises are great for helping the health of your baby plus enhancing the parents bonding with their baby and feeling of involvement in their care.
- To help encourage the practise of reading to your baby, a book was also included in each pack (donated by an organisation which wishes to remain anonymous)
- The Father’s Day card was designed by Natasha, the mother of a neonatal unit graduate. With this, we included a printed copy of our ‘Tips for Dad‘ support resource. The practical tips included in this resource came from Dads who had been on a neonatal journey.
- We purchase the bags for the items to go into – paper, not plastic! (If you know an organisation who is able to support, we’d love to hear from you on info@littlemiraclestrust.org.nz)
- Organising 400 packs means a large number of boxes, with the items arriving at different times (to suit those who support us).
- The ‘Big pack in’ occurs, where we organise a bulk package for each neonatal unit in New Zealand. With the great support of Powershop, we took over their large meeting room! A very large number of boxes were assembled and we carefully ensure the right amount of every item for bulk pack.
The packs are bulk packed, rather than individually packaged, so the items arrived in top shape (bags not wrinkled, Support resources not damaged, etc). Pictured to the right are some of the Powershop crew who helped us pack the many boxes to be sent by Mainfreight.- The boxes are then collected from Powershop and taken to the Mainfreight depot. We had the great support of Andrew from AJ Oaks Building. Andrew is the father of a neonatal unit graduate and kindly gave his time and use of his van to help us transport the boxes to Mainfreight. .
- Due to this, volunteers and nurses at the other end help us to put together the individual packs and then distribute them on the morning of Fathers Day.
- We then put out media releases, do the odd radio interview and organise website articles and social media posts – to acknowledge our supporters and help raise awareness of neonatal journeys.
Our huge and heartfelt thanks go to all the people and organisations who helped to make this support activity happen!
In summary
- 400 packs created
- Dozens of volunteers helping in a range of different ways
- 8 organisations donating their product / service / time
- The Father’s Day ‘pick-me-up’ packs were very well received. Here’s a small sample of some of the direct feedback we received:
Thanks
Thanks to all of the supporters who helped to make the 2018 Fathers Day packs happen! Check them out in this gallery.
