The award-winning charity Kids in Need Waikato has announced plans for a new ownership structure to secure its future.
Amy Banks and Matthew Ockleston. Photo: Viv Posselt
It has launched The Legacy Project, a campaign aimed at moving from renting to purchasing its Cambridge base.
The sign at the entrance to the property also carries the Kids in Need Waikato logo. Photo: Viv Posselt
The Fencourt Rd property housing Kids in Need Waikato is owned by the charity’s founders, Graeme and Linda Roil. On it is their personal home plus various other buildings added to accommodate the charity’s growing needs.
The Kids in Need Waikato Charitable Trust, which was set up in 2018, is now spearheading the move to future-proof, with Amy Banks and Matthew Ockleston leading the project.
Trust chair Amy Banks, a business development and marketing planner, said the charity is fundamental to buying the property from the Roils. Owning the property will allow for the expansion of services, unlock access to grants and funding that are not available while renting, and prepare for future leadership.
Kids in Need Waikato Trust chair Amy Banks with fellow trustee Matthew Ockleston are leading the charge to future-proof the charity. Photo: Viv Posselt
Fellow trustee and property law specialist Matthew Ockleston said The Legacy Project’s target was $2 million. Of that, $1 million will secure the property, with the rest going towards realising the charity’s long-term vision and facilitating further development. Included in those plans are a bike track.
He told The News that of the many charities he has seen, Kids in Need Waikato is ‘by far the best’. “It is extremely well run and organised. That is what people expect to see when they support something like this.”
The Legacy Project is intended to ensure Kids in Need Waikato can expand its reach and offer greater stability to the families reliant on their support.
Over a decade has passed since Linda and Graeme Roil started gathering donated clothes and toys in their Cambridge home to help those caring for children not biologically their own.
Kids in Need founders Linda and Graeme Roil began their own fostering journey in 2014. Photo: supplied
The Roils began turning community donations into age-appropriate care-packs for children aged newborn to 18 and their caregivers, including foster families and grandparents raising grandchildren. They also offered support in terms of emergency or respite care for older children.
From those beginnings, the charity has grown into a lifeline for more than 560 caregivers raising 1300 children in the Waikato each year. Every month, an average 168 care-packs go out, filled with clothes, shoes, toys and toiletries, often to children who arrive in care with nothing but what they are wearing at the time.
The stained-glass window, donated in kind by local companies, is situated high in the chapel and carries an image that mirrors that on the charity’s logo. Photo: Viv Posselt
Trustees Amy Banks and Matthew Ockleston inside the chapel on the property. Photo: Viv Posselt
