\u201cThat\u2019s a huge amount for our little club and it just shows the need that is out there in society,\u201d club treasurer Cherie Hames said.<\/p>\n
From talking to hospitals, she believes their club is the only group in New Zealand making this many baby coffins, but despite hospitals and birthing units needing more, they aren\u2019t able to meet that demand.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are at a point where we don\u2019t have the room to make any more,\u201d Hames said. \u201cWe are basically at capacity of what we can make on the premises, we have to find new premises.\u201d<\/p>\n
The baby coffins are stored in a little room out the back of the main workshop, and inside each coffin lies a hand-knitted cuddly bear and blanket crafted by local women.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s devastating,\u201d volunteer Alan Monk said. \u201cYou can imagine a family expecting a newborn and, all of a sudden, it\u2019s all over.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s the last thing, the absolute last thing on the list that they would have even considered they had to get ready.\u201d<\/p>\n
The baby coffins are being made next to the club\u2019s main workshop, in an old cold netball ablution block, where rusty cobweb-covered showerheads still stick out of the concrete walls.<\/p>\n
Volunteer Don Mardle oversees the operation, which he said could produce more coffins, if they had a larger building and more volunteers.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re restricted by space and labour,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis year, we are up to 147 as of today and that\u2019s only scratching the surface really.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m a retired tradie, I came here to make adult coffins but found my space making baby coffins.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mardle volunteers more than 20 hours a week of labour to ensure enough baby coffins are made.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s an incredible privilege to be doing this,\u201d he said. \u201cI love giving to our community and, if there are any tradies out there \u2013 joiners, cabinet makers \u2013 we\u2019d love some help,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Hames said people volunteer from all walks of life and for all sorts of reasons.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome of the women have had miscarriages in the past and the way that was dealt with was not the nicest, so for them, it fills a real need,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cOn the other side of it too, we have people that are in rest homes that are still useful. Just because you go into a rest home, doesn\u2019t mean there isn\u2019t an area you can fill.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think volunteering and usefulness stops at a certain age.\u201d<\/p>\n
For the past 11 years, the Coffin Club has leased its buildings off the Hastings District Council on a six-month rolling contract.<\/p>\n
The council told RNZ the area had not been earmarked for any particular activity or development to date.<\/p>\n
\u201cDecisions on its future will be made by council in consultation with the community, once strategic planning work being undertaken for Windsor Park, including Splash Planet, is completed and as resources allow,\u201d a spokesperson said.<\/p>\n
\u201cGiven that the future of the green space is undecided, council will not approve new buildings on it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The council said any club or organisation wishing to establish premises on council-owned land may submit an application, and it had not received an application from the Coffin Club.<\/p>\n
Hames said the club was worried it would have to move, once a decision was made about the future of Windsor Park, so the group was hunting for land in Hastings to build a permanent home and continue the club\u2019s legacy.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need to be somewhere we can expand and build or alter to fit our purposes.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnybody willing to help donate and get us to our goal, we would really appreciate that. We are a worthwhile cause.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018We have a lot of fun here\u2019<\/p>\n
Volunteer Pete Wolstenholme joined the club more than three years ago, although he\u2019s yet to make his own coffin.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I retired, I needed something to do,\u201d he said. \u201cI saw it advertised and thought, \u2018That sounds different, I\u2019ll go down and have a look\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had the thought that probably a lot of people have, that it\u2019s a bit morbid, but it\u2019s far from it. We have a lot of fun here, we\u2019re always laughing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pete\u2019s friend, Alan Monk, has also volunteered for several years, helping many people design their final resting place. He said Kiwis\u2019 attitudes towards death were evolving.<\/p>\n
\u201cMore and more, there is an acceptance that I\u2019ve got to get ready for that day, it\u2019s going to come sometime, so I\u2019ve got to help my family by putting things together.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople sort of say, \u2018Well, that\u2019s my final bed\u2019, so we talk about this as \u2018underground furniture\u2019,\u201d Monk said.<\/p>\n
For some, it\u2019s an opportunity to have a bit of fun decorating their coffin. Wolstenholme and Monk laugh, as they remember one member who turned his coffin into a truck.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was a heavy truck driver and his coffin had big lights on the front, it had a sound-effect motor in it and lights actually working,\u201d Monk said.<\/p>\n
The friends enjoyed the camaraderie that came with being part of the club and the sense of purpose in giving back, which Hames said was a common feeling among members.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019ve got to be able to find a lightness in life, and sometimes it just comes through people getting together and having that same goal, making things better and being able to celebrate the last thing you can possibly do for somebody,\u201d Hames said.<\/p>\n
– RNZ<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cThat\u2019s a huge amount for our little club and it just shows the need that is out there…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":573469,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[20306,534,1561,18836,167898,4194,4190,2082,1976,1345,9862,117,111,43,139,69,133681,3258,61],"class_list":["post-573468","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-alex","tag-amid","tag-bay","tag-club","tag-coffin","tag-cook","tag-demand","tag-for","tag-hawkes","tag-home","tag-meet","tag-new","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-searches","tag-struggles","tag-to"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573468","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=573468"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573468\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/573469"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=573468"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=573468"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=573468"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}