Cancer charity thinks outside the box
"The demand is definitely there and that is driven by a growing awareness about the wide range of applications containers can be used for." Royal Wolf executive general manager Paul Creighton
Clare O’Higgins thought she would be travelling around New Zealand holding beauty workshops for cancer patients in a ‘‘little caravan’’ for her charity Look Good Feel Better.
She never expected to be using a 40-foot shipping container, donated by Royal Wolf.
A suggestion that started as a ‘‘throwaway comment’’ soon became a reality that gave cancer patients around New Zealand the ability to attend beauty workshops no more than 30 minutes from their home.
The shipping container workshop travelled from city to city on the back of a truck and even hitched a ride on the Interislander.
She said women in the workshop got to have a sense of normality and control during cancer treatment in a space that – from the outside – did not seem normal at all.
‘‘The container is our workshop, the container is our place where somebody can be themselves, can meet other women that are undergoing cancer treatment and have a sense of community at a time that they don’t feel that at all, they feel very much on their own.’’
Thanks to donations from Mazda, Royal Wolf, Sistema, Mitre 10, BP, and Farmers, the group were able to visit areas where the charity did not previously have any volunteers or infrastructure, such as Queenstown, Omaru, Whanganui, Levin and Kerikeri, O’Higgins said.
The shipping container will be back on the road in April, bringing tips and tricks to new audiences. The charity will be talking to medical teams, and offering a new workshop for men, which they are piloting now.
Royal Wolf executive general manager Paul Creighton said it has been a ‘‘record year’’ for shipping containers.
Their shipping containers were installed as a pedestrian bridge in Invercargill, used to store nail polish and perfume for The Warehouse during Christmas time, and housed a cluster of shops and food stalls on wharves in Auckland and Wellington.
Creighton said they have become ubiquitous on the innercity landscape on the back of the construction boom.
In Auckland, container hoardings function as covered pedestrian walkways. Six containers were used to build an office space with changing rooms and toilets for the Auckland City Rail Link.
‘‘The demand is definitely there and that is driven by a growing awareness about the wide range of applications containers can be used for,’’ Creighton said.
To meet the demand, Royal Wolf opened new offices in Nelson and Whangarei in 2016.
Creighton said the company has been receiving inquiries on using the containers for housing, but there was more red tape when they’re being used as more permanent structures.
‘‘The demand to use shipping containers as residences isn’t growing as fast as other parts of the business – there’s a lot more compliance in that space – when you’re living in it, it has to meet a certain code.’’