The call went out early on in the week for volunteers to come and help during Havelock North's water contamination crisis.
Usually - they focus on older people, but when Havelock North's water was contaminated and thousands fell ill, Age Concern became a hive of activity - for the entire community.
Age Concern volunteer Brett Feehan says: "We started turning into a go-to place, so Age Concern Havelock North became a true community hub."
Although he was recovering from the gastro bug himself, Brett Feehan volunteered to help others.
"We came up with a plan, let's get some water let's get some food and let's get it out."
Volunteers played a huge role in managing the crisis.
It was no easy task - initially - no one knew the scale.
"It probably started out small, but because it wasn't amended it became more than a snowball effect - it became an avalanche."
"We had a thousand people's worth of water going out the door on the Saturday morning."
"The week after the notification we had a team of four in here and we gave out the equivalent of 400 people's worth of water, we were here on the Sunday and it was very similar."
"I hope it never comes back because we in the village here didn't have a good central point, Civil Defence was using us, the community was using us and people were coming to us for information."
Mr Feehan says the human toll is unacceptable.
"The deaths were totally needless, and I think that is a huge thing the community has to bare, maybe the inquiry will bring it out, but needless deaths through something that was totally preventable - through a system which should've looked after them but didn't, but their acrimony would be a mild form for some people."
He hopes lessons will also be learnt about being prepared for disasters.
He wants a hub created specifically for volunteers - so that smaller organisations like Age Concern don't have to carry such a load in the future.
Made with funding from
