Calling it a day
The woman who led Feilding to its 15th Most Beautiful Town award is calling time and selling her home business.
Reena Wallis ends her fouryear association with Keep Feilding Beautiful and six years with Aroha Bed and Breakfast to move to Palmerston North where she will have more time to help Afghanistan refugees.
After taking the reins of the volunteer organisation from Del Gibb in 2013, Wallis said it was time for someone else to stand up.
She would depart Feilding when her house sold, but was hoping to find a volunteer to lead the group before she left.
While Keep Feilding Beautiful was well recognised for the awards she credited the work of other community groups, such as the redevelopment of Victoria Park by the Makino Rotary Club and Kowhai Park by the Manchester Lions Club.
There was a time when Wallis thought she would never leave Feilding, however the next chapter was one that was close to her heart.
For several years she had been helping refugees integrate into New Zealand society and she wanted to pursue it full time.
She said her love of foreigners came in a ‘‘lightbulb’’ moment while reading the bible.
In it she read, ‘[God] shows love to the foreigners living among you and gives them food and clothing. So you, too, must show love, for you yourselves were once foreigners in the land of Egypt’.
She advocates on their behalf to bureaucratic organisations, such as Work and Income, hospitals and Housing New Zealand.
‘‘Our interests have changed from care of physical things, such as [the bed and breakfast] and Keep Feilding Beautiful to the care of people,’’ Wallis said.
The former nurse and her husband John retired in 2008 to experience a new lifestyle, making use of her career by turning their home into convalescent care for hospital patients recovering from major surgery.
However, the job became too time-consuming and Wallis opted to transform the five-bedroom house into a bed and breakfast in 2011.
She leaves behind a formidable reputation, with the accommodation business rated No.1 on TripAdvisor for bed and breakfasts in the area.