When John Tindle towed a heavily laden trailer into the yard at Mainfreight, he was completing part of a process to get some necessary dental equipment to Tonga.
John is president of Rotary Club of Wanganui North, and on his trailer was a stack of equipment, all crated up by the guys at The Men's Shed, and destined for Nuku'alofa.
"This project is sort of a spinoff from our big Rotary Club project with Tonga, which is to send an orthopaedic surgical trauma table to the hospital in Nuku'alofa," says Rotary Club of Wanganui North vice-president, Marion Johnston. "That's a big, ongoing project. We've sourced about $200,000 worth of orthopaedic equipment … so this is John van Dalen's project that he started."
Marion says that project should extend over three years, which will include bringing one of the Tongan surgeons to a New Zealand hospital to study and upskill in orthopaedics.
"As a spinoff of that, I was telling my daughter-in-law [Rachel Mayo] about this and she asked if they need any dental equipment."
Rachel works for Adam Durning at The Dentists as Group Clinical Administrator.