Southern View: December 17, 2020
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SOUTHERN VIEW Latest Canterbury news at starnews.co.nz<br />
Thursday <strong>December</strong> <strong>17</strong> <strong>2020</strong> 3<br />
Orphanage life shapes ‘caring’ volunteer<br />
• By Bea Gooding<br />
EVEN THOUGH Lesley O’Neill<br />
grew up without her parents, she<br />
never once felt like she had no<br />
family to turn to.<br />
With an absent father, and<br />
after her mother died of an<br />
illness, life changed forever<br />
at three-years-old when the<br />
Nazareth House orphanage<br />
in Sydenham became her new<br />
home.<br />
But having the sisters and<br />
other children by her side for the<br />
next 14 years it felt like growing<br />
up in a big family.<br />
“It was a home and there<br />
were a lot of other people. Like<br />
any upbringing, there’s always<br />
positives and negatives – but the<br />
positives totally outweighed the<br />
negatives,” she said.<br />
“I guess what happened was<br />
I had an experience that a lot of<br />
people have never had. The skills<br />
that I have now are part of the<br />
nurturing I received as a child.”<br />
Learning the value of hard<br />
work and giving back from a<br />
young age was what fuelled her<br />
drive these days to volunteer at<br />
the Christchurch South Fruit and<br />
Vegetable Collective, helping out<br />
with setting up the hall and bags<br />
in time for the delivery trucks.<br />
Her tenacity in the last six years<br />
was why she was nominated as a<br />
recipient of a Spreydon-Cashmere<br />
Community Service Award this<br />
year.<br />
Some of the jobs she had<br />
growing up was answering the<br />
phone or opening the door to<br />
visitors. But one of the biggest<br />
lessons she took away from it all<br />
was the determination the sisters<br />
showed when it came to keeping<br />
the children alive.<br />
“THe sisters used to go out<br />
into the community, begging for<br />
money and food to keep us all<br />
alive. They would come home,<br />
they were exhausted; their shoes<br />
all worn out,” said O’Neill.<br />
“THat taught me about caring<br />
for other people.”<br />
THe fruit and vegetable collective<br />
ESSENTIAL:<br />
Volunteer<br />
Leslie O’Neill<br />
and Richard<br />
Clemance were<br />
both recipients<br />
of a Spreydon-<br />
Cashmere<br />
Community<br />
Service Award<br />
this year.<br />
processes about 200 orders of<br />
fresh produce each week and are<br />
distributed to eight community<br />
hubs, which is then delivered to<br />
homes across the city – many of<br />
which are on low incomes.<br />
“I’m not looking for a reward<br />
for my work, it’s about what I can<br />
do to support others. Fruit and<br />
vegetables are the food that keeps<br />
people alive,” she said.<br />
O’Neill was not the only one<br />
recognised from the collective.<br />
It was a “big surprise” and<br />
a “humbling” feeling when<br />
Richard Clemance found out he<br />
was also a recipient of the service<br />
award.<br />
For the past six years, he has<br />
helped set up and pack down<br />
the premises, supervised the<br />
unloading and packing process,<br />
and setting up the packing line<br />
for the 20 volunteers.<br />
THe collective purchases<br />
produce from wholesalers<br />
and supermarkets and are<br />
available to the public to buy<br />
in bags, providing a more<br />
affordable option for homes to<br />
get their 5+ A Day.<br />
THe delivery service also<br />
helped people who could not<br />
easily leave their homes, such as<br />
elderly people.<br />
“It gets me out of the house<br />
and it helps a lot of people. It’s<br />
also a good social time, there’s<br />
a good bunch of people [at the<br />
collective],” he said.<br />
He believed others should give<br />
it a go.<br />
“It doesn’t matter how much<br />
or how little it is, every little bit<br />
helps,” Clemance said.<br />
“I try my best; someone’s got<br />
to do it.”<br />
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