An incredible tale of survival of a pig named Lucky, who is just that, is now spreading messages of hope and resilience to young people around Tasman.
Stacey Smith lives on a semi-rural property in Hawke’s Bay that was hit hard during Cyclone Gabrielle in 2023.
Stacey, a mum of three young children who, along with her husband and brother, were forced to escape the fast-rising flood waters by climbing onto their shed roof.
They were helicoptered to the safety of a nearby hill as their home and property were swallowed by flood waters.
The following day, her husband entered their home to check the damage.
“He was walking through the house and walked into the kids’ room and saw some skin and initially thought ‘oh no, it’s a body’, but no, it was a pig,” Stacey recalls.
A pig from Stacey’s aunty and uncle’s place next door had swum into their home searching for safety and had found it on young Bella Smith’s bed.
“The only way she could’ve come in is down the hallway,” Stacey says. “She’s made her way in against the flow of water and climbed onto my daughters’ bed.”
The tale, Stacey says, provided “something light-hearted amongst all the yuckiness”.
“Talking to people about what happened, some suggested it would make a really cool book. I’d seen the books that were done out of the Kaikōura and Christchurch earthquakes.”
So, she set to penning the tale, and secured funding to print 1000 copies of The Lucky Little Pig to distribute to children in Hawke’s Bay.
A social worker for 15 years, Stacey thought she would be okay helping her kids through the aftermath of the devastating storm.
“But honestly I found it so, so incredibly hard and thought how helpful this would have been straight after the flood if someone just gave it to me,” she says.
Hearing of the floods across Tasman, Stacey gathered 160 copies of the book and sent them to the Tasman District Council to distribute to schools and early learning centres across the district, and sent another batch to the local Oranga Tamariki office.
“It’s important for tamariki to know they’re not alone in what they’re going through. Life always has ups and down and has times when it’s hard.
“And for me it was really important to have coping mechanisms weaved through the story.”
The book can be purchased through its Facebook page @theluckylittlepig, with all monies going towards future print runs to distribute to children in need.
And where has Lucky ended up?
“She stayed with us at first - all the fences were down but she didn’t go very far,” Stacey remembers fondly.
Lucky is now happy at home on another family member’s property where she is about to birth her second litter of piglets.
