Editorial: Rotorua rallies to help

Brian Pohatu and his family.

In times of trouble you really know who your friends are but in some cases it's strangers who come to the rescue.

In Saturday's Rotorua Daily Post we ran a story regarding Brian Pohatu and his partner Ashley Mosen.

Brian, the sole breadwinner in the household with two children under 3, was devastated he could not provide for his whanau after being made redundant when Tachikawa Forest Products went into receivership. More than 120 people have lost their jobs. Many would be in the same position as Mr Pohatu.

But thanks to the kindness of the Rotorua community their worries are over for the short term. Strangers have filled their freezer with meat, their cupboards with food and their children have nappies and clothes. Mr Pohatu and Ms Mosen say they could never have done that on their own.

The weeks after he was made redundant were a stressful time for the couple with job prospects limited and uncertainty of how he was going to pay his bills. We are also just over a month away from Christmas.

The generosity shown by the community reminds me why it is great to live here in Rotorua.

When the chips are down, the community rallies. You only have to look at the Rotorua Daily Post annual Christmas appeals.

Rotorua has always come to the party and dug deep for a worthy cause.

There is no better way to remember this than by the whakatauki (Maori proverb): He aha te mea nui o te ao? He tangata, he tangata, he tangata. (What is the most important thing of all? It is people, people, people.)