Tauranga’s Brain Injured Children’s Trust started small.
Trustee Shirley Wilson said they worked out of her lounge with “50 bucks and a heap of passion and a vision to help other families experiencing the difficulties of raising a child with a disability”.
The members were taking part in a home-based neuro development therapy programme with community volunteers.
“We started 15 years ago with three families and now have over 100 families and growing.
“When I look back at how we grew it was from coming out of the lounge room into a small back office space in a building in Greerton where we grew a little more. Then we reluctantly moved to The Kollective, mainly because over those years we had accumulated enough paper to open a stationery shop!”
It was a daunting process to scan and archive all that information into a computer, with volunteers helping. Now they’re at The Kollective and paperless.
“Wow – what a transformation and being part of a community. Being able to network and tell our story has given us the confidence to grow some more.
“We are now so confident that we are embarking on expanding our board and moving strategically into several different areas with more skilled volunteers, all who have caught the vision and want to participate in the growth,” Shirley says.