Huge turnout for Tonga donations
Auckland’s Tongan community turned out en masse to a donation drive to assist families in disaster-hit Tonga.
Eight shipping containers were sitting in a Mt Smart carpark on Friday, ready to be filled with 44-gallon drums in a family-to-family donation scheme.
The island nation was hit by a devastating volcanic eruption and tsunami on January 15.
Loisi Halafihi was there with items for her 80-year-old sister.
Through tears, Halafihi said she arrived at 6am, three hours before donations opened.
‘‘It doesn’t matter how long [we waited], as long as we send the stuff.’’
Halafihi has not had contact with her sister and does not know whether the house is damaged.
‘‘We hope we are going to talk to her soon, we cross our fingers and we hope.’’
Halafihi filled her drum with water, medicines, canned foods, flour and toilet paper.
Beauty, who only gave her first name, was filling four drums with her son and daughter – one each to go to different parts of her family around Tonga, who she had not yet been able to contact. Those relatives included her husband, who has been in Nuku’alofa for a year and unable to return because of MIQ.
‘‘We pray as the days go that we will call them and let them know some drums are going,’’ she said.
By 11am, the donation drive had run out of 44-gallon drums.
Auckland mayor Phil Goff announced a $25,000 donation to the relief and recovery efforts in
Tonga, after touring donation drive on Friday.
MPs Jenny Salesa and Anahila Kanongata’a-Suisuiki are heading up the Aotearoa Tonga Relief Committee, which is urgently seeking donations of non-perishable food and bottled water for the people of Tonga. the
At least 150 people have required evacuation from their home islands.
One island closest to the centre of the volcanic eruption, Mango, has been entirely devastated by the blast and tsunami, with no houses or structures left standing.
Aucklander Mote Pahulu, who grew up on Mango, said that meant at least a dozen homes and a new church building were destroyed.
He lost a relative to the tsunami, he told Stuff: 65-yearold Teisa Kafoika, who was a stalwart of the community.