Community

“Adversity doesn’t choose. It just happens,” says Terry Long. He and his wife Tanya experienced that firsthand when their 17-year-old daughter Mel died of leukemia in 2006.

Just before she passed away Mel asked her father to do two things: take her ashes back home so she could be with her parents and two brothers, and spend the money she had saved to go to university on young people in her home region of Taranaki who were going through tough times.

“She said ‘you always talk about what comes around goes around, that’s your philosophy, and we’ve had a lot of support from the community over the last few years.’ So I made a promise to my daughter and I’m a man of my word,” he says.

18 years on and the favour has been well and truly returned through the work of the Mellowpuff Charitable Trust (so named because Mel loved Mallowpuffs).

Supporting kids in a range of ways

Adversity is subjective, and there seems to be an unending supply of it these days. “But Mel said ‘it doesn’t matter what the adversity is, what colour they are, what language they speak, or what their financial situation is, if they’ve gone through adversity, I want you to help them.’ You could be born with something, you could develop challenges, or you could experience something traumatic like suicides, fires or car accidents. We’ve supported kids who have seen things they should never have seen.”

The process involves a simple one page nomination form that asks: who’s the child, what’s their adversity and how can we help? Things started off small, but Long says the Trust now receives 3-4 nominations a week and while it can’t help everyone, it has helped a huge number of under 19-year-olds and their families and become a beacon of positivity in the Taranaki community.

The money goes where it’s needed

Because the Trust is run on a volunteer basis, he says “99.99% of the money that’s raised is spent on the kids”. Recently it has used the funds to send 40 kids from a low-decile school on an overnight camp for the first time, supported a chill out / sensory area in another school to help struggling students, and provided funding for around 70 tamariki and rangatahi to do the ‘Moveable Programme’, a localised adaptive gym sport, as well as helping several individuals with various needs.

The Trust doesn’t give anyone money, “we just take care of things,” he smiles. The money has also been used to support kids who may not have long to live, and has offered helicopter rides or weekends away in donated baches. “Some of these kids we’ve helped might pass away a few months later, but at least we saw a smile or created some joy or made a memory for them and their families.”

One of the Trust’s signature events - an idea Tanya came up with - is called the Christmas Break-in, which combines a short blast of communal effort and an unbelievable amount of community spirit to transform a house and create a very special Christmas for one family.

“I’ve called on many a tradie to help,” Terry says, and they generally don’t charge for their time or products. A number of businesses offer free or discounted products for the annual project and sponsors and previous recipients are often there to lend a hand. “I tell people that I find all the pieces of a puzzle, I put them together and when it’s made I go and do another one.”

Annual events

Terry says the first event the Trust ran to raise funds was meant to be “our one and only golf day”. They wanted to add to Mel’s original $12,000 in savings and they managed to raise another $20,000 (including $10,000 from a donor who liked what they were trying to do). Someone at the event said ‘see you next year’ and it’s been running ever since. It also runs bowls and rugby events and the community always gets behind them.

“People say ‘how can I help you?’ Some people have money and they might be able to give us some. Some people don’t have money but they might be able to give us time.”

In the case of Forsyth Barr, it’s a bit of both, says New Plymouth Manager Dave Fuller. The connection with the Trust began when the team started looking for a shared cause as a way to build unity and support the local community. “Terry came in and talked to us. He told us the story, he cried, we all cried, and we decided this was something we wanted to support … You don’t really say no to Terry. You can’t. He’s not intimidating, you just don’t want to let him down.”

Forsyth Barr makes a donation to the Trust every year, but it’s not just about the money, Terry says. He says Forsyth Barr’s local team can often be found cooking, serving and cleaning up on the golf day; they’re there on their weekends to help at the Mellowpuff rugby day; and Dave Fuller even offers his bach so that it can be auctioned off to raise more funds. 

“These guys at Forsyth Barr are emotionally connected to us. We’re really taken aback by what they give outside of the dollars. We can do cool stuff with the money, but sometimes the other stuff is more valuable.”

The Trust’s heartbeat

Dave says Terry and Tanya are very much the heartbeat of the Trust. “They are amazingly generous and resilient people. The community wraps around them and they are just so real you just can’t help but get involved. And we get a massive buzz out of helping.”

Terry, who has been involved in sports his whole life and still has a full-time job, says he always tries to be “the right person doing the right thing at the right time” and thinks that “if everyone did something for somebody else it would be a better place to live”. It’s clear he’s doing an outstanding job of living those principles - and an outstanding job of honouring his daughter’s wishes.

He says the Trust is a beautiful legacy for Mel and a great way to keep himself occupied. “If I wasn’t doing this I may be in a dark place, or no place at all. Mel basically gave me a purpose,” he says. “…I think she would be pretty proud of what we’re doing and the way we’re doing it. She’s probably up there smiling and knowing that something good came out of a terrible situation. She’s still having an impact 18 years later, so she’d be stoked. She’d be clapping and saying ‘you did good today Mum and Dad.’”

To find out more, visit www.mellowpufftrust.co.nz