Running Mum: One year on

It has almost been a year since I ruptured my left Achilles tendon playing social netball. A lot changed in our family when this happened – I could not cook, clean, drive or work.

Taking care of my family is what I do, and I physically couldn’t do any of it for a good three months.

It took my family and I a while to get our heads around that, but my wonderful husband stepped up and my amazing Mum moved in. We had to be organised for the needs of our four daughters and they, too, had to step up with helping out around the house.

We learnt to accept help from friends, which was initially hard, as we didn’t want to put anyone out, but soon discovered how happy it made them, as well as us.

At this time, I wondered how people new to a community would cope if they did not have family or many friends around.

I wanted to create a school community help group, driven by parents, but at this stage I was still stuck on the couch with my leg in a cast.

About 10 months later I met a lovely mum, Fiona, at my first Windsor North School PTA meeting. Fiona had also been thinking about a school support group long before me and had already been discussing it at meetings. That night (about two months ago) we formed the ‘Care Committee’.

The focus of the Care Committee is to encourage and organise our school community to help and support Windsor North families and staff in need.

We have three mums (myself, Fiona and Kirsty), as well as our wonderful principal, Andrew Smith, on the committee.

We have had a fantastic volunteer response from our school community and have been able to help two families already. We have provided meals, baking, stacked wood and done gardening. It has also given our children the chance to be involved in helping and thinking about others.

I hope all schools can create a Care Committee, it just takes a few passionate parents to organise it (and a fabulous school administrator – thanks Donna – as well as a supportive principal).

Please contact us if you would like help setting up a Care Committee: wnscarecommittee@gmail.com.

For more details about the families we are helping go to givealittle.co.nz and search ‘Sienna Grace’, and ‘Antlers up for Jayden’.