Community groups benefit from festive generosity

Five community groups and the people they support will, at the end of yet another challenging year, enjoy a little extra festive cheer, thanks to the Christmas Giving generosity of Craigs Investment Partners.

As a long-time supporter of communities across the country, Craigs has again donated to charities in the Top of the South in lieu of sending Christmas gifts to clients throughout New Zealand. As has become a festive season tradition, Top of the South Community Foundation is assisting Craigs Blenheim and Nelson branches with their annual giving.

The community groups to receive the good news about grants to spend on Christmas-related projects are: Grandparents Raising Grandchildren (Nelson) • Life Linc (Nelson Tasman) • Second Chance Tasman (Nelson Tasman) • Black Dog Swim Home for I am Hope (Marlborough) • Crossroads Marlborough.

Diana Bartle, Life Linc Chair says; “We are just so grateful to Craigs and TotSCF for this grant which will allow us to do a little bit extra to say "Thank you" to our team.

“If we didn't have our fabulous team of dedicated volunteer counsellors, Life Linc would not be able to provide the service to our community that it does. What with the stress of Covid over the last couple of years and now the high cost of living, we wanted to acknowledge them with Christmas gifts. The balance of the funds will go towards a Christmas party where the volunteer counsellors, board members, staff and representatives from the Goodwill Charity Shop will join us.”

Life Linc Nelson (formerly Lifeline Nelson) has been counselling people since 1974. It began as a crisis telephone counselling service supported from the start by the local Goodwill Charity shop. Additional funds were raised by local people to purchase a safe house for the service in the 1990s. In 2016 Life Linc ceased the telephone service as there were bigger organisations providing telehealth.

“We chose to strengthen our face-to-face service and have evolved into a thriving counselling service, well known and trusted by the Nelson Tasman community. We have a dedicated team of 13 qualified and committed counsellors, managed by a highly motivated part time team of two staff.”

Life Linc offers affordable and accessible professional counselling services including:

• Individual, professional face to face, telephone or online counselling 

• Low-cost couple’s counselling
• Art Therapy with a focus on those between the ages of 13 and 18, from a studio in Nelson.  

The annual Craigs Christmas Giving is supported by the 17 Community Foundations around NZ, such as Top of the South Community Foundation. “It is our pleasure to work with the TotSCF and Community Foundations of New Zealand to provide support to organisations who are doing such good work in a difficult environment,” says Karl Williscroft, Investment Adviser at Craigs.