Carol was our founding board Chair. We chose her not only because of her exceptional governance knowledge and experience, nor because she had run the Disability Services Directorate for the Ministry of Health for many years, but because she had a real understanding and empathy for people, and a passion to do what ever she could to ensure people were able to live good lives. In 2017 Carol didn’t retire, she ‘rewired’ which has for her meant shifting her focus to home and family, and using the skills she has to continue to contribute to improving the world. Last year after seeing a story about families unable to keep their babies warm, her ’Nana’ mode kicked and she took to knitting. A passion she’d had for many years but with her professional life had taken a back seat. She decided to focus on a school, and her first schools was Fruitvale Primary School in West Auckland. She set about knitting over 250 beanies, in a range of sizes that would fit children from new entrants to year 8 heads. She wanted to make sure every single one was different so that every single child felt special. In May this year she met with Principal Donal McLean and his team to hand the beanies over. In true Carol humbleness she didn’t even get a photo of that one! However we have photos of her latest endeavour, 45 beanies for children at Ruakākā Primary School.
We love a good story about people doing cool things, and feel even more proud because this one is about one of the TMH whanau continuing to make a difference in the world … one beanie at a time.