23 June, 2021
Phillippa Holley is being recognised for 20 years’ service at Harbour Hospice North Shore’s Long Service Awards. She has volunteered at the Link Dr, Glenfield hospice shop since its inception and was one of its last unpaid managers.
Phillippa Holley doesn’t do things by halves. When ‘back in the day’ there were no men available to drive the ‘four-on-the-floor’ gear-change hospice vans to pick up donated goods, she’d do it herself.
When pricing items, if the former businesswoman from Milford didn’t know how much something was worth (these were the days before reference points such as TradeMe), she’d ask Auckland’s top auction house dealers. She has become extremely knowledgeable on fine china and art, as a result.
And when she once couldn’t fit a desk in her car that she’d found on the side of the road (and identified as perfect to sell for hospice) she flagged down a passing motorist.
“I did try to phone a friend first,” she chuckles. “But she said, ‘For God’s sake Phil, you’re the bloody limit. So, no, I’m not coming up there to help you put a desk in a car.’ I thought, ‘Stuff it. A guy came along in a car so I waved him down and said, ‘Look, could you possibly give me a hand.’”
Today tighter health and safety regulations prevent Phillippa from being so energetic, but it’s this tenacity and acumen that has seen her source and sell thousands and thousands of dollars’ worth of stock for hospice over the years. Since 2007 she has been nominated twice for the Elsie Tillet award for Outstanding Volunteer of the Year, and in 2012 she won it. The wording on her 2007 nomination is what she is most proud of, though. It reads, ‘Her positive attitude, enormous work ethic, knowledge and skills have created the foundation for this successful shop.’
“I’d like to be buried with that,” she states matter-of-factly.
This year Phillippa is receiving a 20 years’ service award, and while she appreciates the recognition she says it’s for her late mother that she does this.
“My mother died on her own in considerable pain after a life of service to others because there was no one to look after her. And I was in England and couldn't get back because of an outbreak of Yellow Fever in India. I couldn't get back through the East, which was the only way to come. There wasn't the communication, and there was no hospice, you see. She didn’t even know I was coming. She probably thought I didn’t care. I don't want anyone to have to go through that. This is my way of payback.
“Some of it is the thrill of the hunt,” she says. ““My mission in life is to stop families from throwing stuff away. People throw so much out in the skip or at the tip, when it could have gone to charity. If someone is moving or selling their house, how hard is it to say, ‘Hi, I’m so-and-so from hospice. If you feel like giving anything to charity, we'd love to have it?
“I’m not talking about family keepsakes, or those items of real value. But the ‘bits and pieces’, the quirky things, they all add up, and being able to sell those makes a great deal of difference to the patients and families that hospice serves.”
