29 June 2022
Heather Schollum, from Warkworth, is being recognised at this year’s Long Service Awards for 20 years’ service.
You can’t beat the farming life with all that fresh air and country living. But it can also be an isolated life, so 20 years ago “farmer’s wife” Heather Schollum offered to volunteer for Harbour Hospice – and became one of the Tuesday Girls.
The Tuesday Girls work together every Tuesday at the Warkworth Hospice Shop, and over the years they’ve become the best of friends. “We have lots of fun, there’s always lots of laughter, and we all know what one another is doing and what one another’s families are doing,” Heather says.
The Tuesday Girls have been there for one another during the best and worst of times, and so too were they there for Heather when her husband of 52 years, well-known local farmer Des Schollum, died in August 2021.
This was around the time that Auckland went into its 107-day lockdown so the Tuesday Girls set up a book club where they’d meet by the riverside with coffee – no books! – giving Heather something to look forward to.
“And they’ve set me up on Whatsapp, too, so we stay in touch every day and swap Wordle scores.”
While these precious friendships have kept Heather going back to sort goods from the back of the shop every week for two decades, the role has also provided plenty of eye-popping moments, the mother of three and renowned baker of great scones reports.
There was the time a very religious member of the community donated a large pile of books. “They were the sexiest books I’ve ever seen,” Heather laughs. “I’ve never seen anything like it.
But the most surprising donation came concealed in the pockets of a trench coat.
“One day these people came round the corner and dumped these clothes and left. I can still remember the face of the man who’d been carrying the clothes. There were suits, all still on coat hangers, and an old trench coat. When I picked it up it was so heavy, I said, ‘Good god, who would wear this?’
“Our shop manager said ‘it’s probably full of diamonds’. She put her hand in one of the pockets and there was $1400 cash!”
The money was handed in to local police but later returned to Hospice as a donation when the cash was not claimed.
“We’re more likely to find old tissues or plane tickets these days,” Heather laughs. But the whole charm of a hospice shop is you never know what you’ll discover.
We need more volunteers in our shops! If you’d like to join the team at your local hospice shop please chat to the manager in store, or click here to send us your details and our Volunteer Services Team will be in contact.
