8 March 2022
With their stand-out bright pink branding our hospice shops are well-known and loved. More than places of trade, they provide a connection back to the care we provide, and a social hub for volunteers and the community.
They’re also integral to our fundraising efforts, bringing in just over a third of our funding needs each year. Last year, customer spending/revenue increased by a phenomenal 35 per cent, but Auckland’s recent extended lockdown hit our shops hard and we’ve begun the new year behind budget. Harbour Hospice Retail Services Manager Maria Baird is grateful to the community for getting in behind the shops now that they’re back up and running.
Harbour Hospice Retail Services Manager Maria Baird
“There are so many people involved in the day of a hospice shop and what we do would not be possible without each and every one of them,” Maria says.
“For our retail managers and volunteers, this work holds such a place in their hearts, in their lives and in their routines. And for our community, they knew we’d be hurt so they’re gifting goods, they’re spending again, they’re fronting up.”
Many of our supporters have been personally touched by hospice, and this is their ‘why’ for backing us the way they do. It’s Maria’s why as well. She was only 22 when her mother Rita died from cancer, aged 49, in hospice care.
Rita was cared for by the Sisters of Mercy at St Joseph’s Hospice (now known as Mercy Hospice) 34 years ago for an unusually long time – 15 months - and Maria was so impacted by the way she and her mother were held by the sisters she has made it her life’s work to give back.
“The love we were shown. It was about compassion and care, and as far as the sisters were concerned Rita was absolutely in the right place,” Maria says.
Maria would visit Rita every afternoon and stay till that quiet time after dinner, the hours marked by cups of tea and comings and goings of nurses.
“It became a spiritual place of love,” Maria recalls. “We were just in the present, and it was very peaceful.” The pair would listen to Rita’s classical music and talk about books, Rita’s past, the everyday.
“That time was as much about me as it was about Rita and I am very grateful for it,” Maria says.
Maria and Rita
A few years after Rita died Maria, a fashion designer, moved to California to work for Rita’s sister - her Aunt Judy - in her art gallery. This was a special time for both, especially as Judy had also lost her and Rita’s mother to cancer.
On returning to NZ Maria spied an ad in her local paper for a retail manager to open Mercy Hospice’s first shop. “I just knew that was my job,” she says. She applied, and in the process was reunited with one of the sisters who had cared for Rita.
After nine years with Mercy, Maria made the switch to Harbour Hospice to build its retail division.
In the seven years that Maria has been with Harbour Hospice she has grown its stable of shops from eight to 17. She has strengthened its brand so “you definitely know when you’re in a hospice shop”. And her goal is to continue growing its retail reach and fundraising capacity. “In a way I feel like this is what I was put here to do because of the experience I had with Rita and the sisters,” she says.
“It would break my heart if ever we had to ask a family for money for our care. We know it costs but we find that money so that our patients never have to be burdened with a bill.”
