Jane O'Connor started volunteering for City Mission Foodbank some years ago.
"I think it was about 12 years ago," says Jane. It was when she retired from her job as a registered nurse in Medical Ward at the hospital. Illness had made her re-evaluate, so when she recovered she stepped away from her job and looked around for something different to do. Jane had worked at the hospital since 1981.
"You can get very isolated, especially when you've been ill." Somewhere she saw an opening at the Foodbank. That involved a meeting with Janice Jones, filling out a form and being subject to a police check. Janice asked if she could start the following week.
"At that stage the foodbank was behind Trinity Methodist Church in Wicksteed St. That's when I started. It was very nice and they were very friendly — I started one day a week, then I went to two days a week, then back to one day a week. Now, on a Tuesday, I get up and go to Foodbank and I work from 9 till 1."
She started off preparing food parcels and doing packaging.
"There weren't many of us, but I did that until Covid. Covid changed everything. Now the Government supplies so much more and parcels are three or four times bigger than they used to be."
Nowadays she spends her time packing.
"I see all the people doing the hard work ... that I used to do. They're nice people. What more can you want? You're getting out ... They work hard down there.
"The other place I volunteer at, I just wandered in there too, same as I did Foodbank."
The "other place" is the Red Cross Book Shop, now in Liverpool St. She works a Monday shift there. "I'm a reader: who wouldn't like it?"
Jane also used to volunteer with Friends of the Hospital.
"We used to take magazines around every day: they were all donated, all new, and people loved them. Someone would be down the front, greeting people as they came in, helping them with where to go and where to get things, get wheelchairs for them and all that sort of thing.
She says it was good because the phone operators didn't have to worry about people coming up and asking for directions or making enquiries. That's all finished now and Friends of the Hospital are no longer required.
Whanganui is home to Jane, now, but she is from the King Country, trained as a nurse at Waikato. Mike, her husband, worked for the NZED as a linesman then substation operator, so they moved around a bit — Morrinsville, Hamilton, Inangahua, Wellington, Taihape and Whanganui.
Jane says she will keep volunteering for as long as she's able.
"You've got to do something ... there is so much in Whanganui to do. You can join all sorts of things."
As Volunteer of the Month, Volunteer Whanganui manager Sandra Rickey presented Jane with a certificate, a volunteer lapel badge and a Mud Ducks-sponsored voucher for $40.
