ZOE REISS
After heavy floods this winter, many Motueka residents lost property and faced the trauma of the disaster.
Motueka Baptist Church responded by distributing donations, hosting events for affected families, and providing psychological first aid training to help the community prepare for future emergencies.
Pastor Paul Cossy says the church wanted to offer practical and emotional support.
“So we were wondering about what we could do to support, and we started to talk about a few different things. We received some cash donations,” Paul says.
Those donations were used to provide $600–$700 worth of vouchers for local shops, cafés and supermarkets. The church also organised a family film night to give whānau a chance to relax and reconnect.
“We actually reached out to three schools – Ngatimoti, Brooklyn and Riwaka – and asked them to nominate some families who they thought had been affected,” Paul says.
Families enjoyed a meal while watching Ratatouille. “It was a really, really wonderful evening. Everyone who came was really pleased and just felt, I guess, that somebody cared.”
Paul says the church also wanted to make a long-term difference by building resilience in the community. In recent weeks, they have hosted civil defence training sessions with the Red Cross and Salvation Army.
“The people who attended the psychological first aid training were people who would be able to provide care and support for families in the midst of a crisis, which could be a flooding or it could be a fire or earthquake or anything like that. So I think now in Motueka, there’s quite a group of people who have been trained, and we’ll all be looking to work with civil defence in the future, to be able to go to community centres or to visit communities where there’s been a big impact.”
Paul says the goal is to prepare for future events and prioritise safety.
“We are preparing, taking those situations seriously, and making sure that you play safe. You should live safely during it, because it’s much better to lose some property than to lose some lives.”
The church is also planning Christmas events to support families later this year.
