Kawau's calendar girls go fundraising

The calendar has raised about $8000 for the Kawau Emergency Response Trust. Photo / John Crawford

A grandmother is among a dozen women from an island community to strip off for a charity calendar.

Paddy Bartlett organised the fundraiser for the Kawau Emergency Response Trust after it helped her husband.

The 62-year-old said trust volunteers kept her husband calm after he fell off a roof until a helicopter took him from the island, off the Matakana peninsula, to Auckland hospital.

She got the idea for the fundraiser from the movie Calendar Girls starring Helen Mirren.

Paddy enlisted photographer John Crawford and recruited 11 fellow islanders to pose topless, their modesty preserved only by props such as jugs and fish.

"It didn't take long to muster up the women," she said. "I don't think any of us felt self-conscious."

Paddy said most people thought the calendar was a great idea, although some argued it was "degrading" to women.

Either way, it was a huge success, with all 600 sold, raising about $8000 for the trust to buy an emergency response jetski.

Bartlett is so proud of her efforts she has bought some of the calendars for her children and friends as Christmas presents.

She said it was the trust's biggest fundraiser, raising more than double the amount collected from a jazz concert last year.