Greenhithe rallies for boots
A mum of three could have never imagined a garage clear out would lead to a community football boot drive.
When Tracy Benge of Greenhithe sold her son’s old bike on Trade Me, she hit it off with the buyer Angela Tuala-Holmes, whose children are at Ranui Primary School.
As Tuala-Holmes was leaving, Benge spied an unused pair of football boots and offered them to one of her sons.
‘‘He said, ‘That’s the first pair of boots I’ve ever had,’’’ Benge says.
‘‘I was thinking, ‘God, we have all these boots that sit on our shoe rack [that the kids have outgrown]’.
‘‘If we could give them to people who actually needed them, we do one thing - we help a community, but we also reduce landfill waste.’’
She mentioned the idea to Tuala-Holmes, who suggested Ranui Primary School.
Benge contacted Greenhithe Football Club and asked them to send out an email requesting unused gear.
In a few months, around 40 pairs of footwear had been collected, as well as a range of sports gear.
Benge and her son Mason, 10, delivered them in person to Ranui Primary School in April.
‘‘We had kids with tears in their eyes,’’ Deputy principal Whea Del McFarlane-Scott says.
‘‘They were just beside themselves - they wanted to wear the boots all day.’’
McFarlane-Scott says sports gear is an area that’s not often recognised as a need.
Boots and pads were given to students in years 4, 5 and 6, as larger shoe sizes tend to be more expensive.
McFarlane-Scott says the boots are an example of ‘paying it forward’, a unit the school covered in term one.
‘‘Something that [Mason] has that he may have outgrown, can be of vital importance and value to somebody else,’’ McFarlaneScott says.
Benge is now collecting for a second giveaway in September, possibly for a refugee resettlement centre.
‘‘To be honest, haven’t done much.
‘‘The story really is about the community - I’ve just been the facilitator.’’
Email gandtbenge@gmail.com for drop offs. I feel like I