Festival funds to support new Lions Cancer Lodge

It may be located out of town but this year's main benefactor of the Katikati Avocado Food and Wine Festival (to be held this Saturday) has helped many locals feel comfort when enduring cancer treatment in Hamilton.
Each year, organisers usually select a local community organisation to benefit from the proceeds raised by the popular festival - but this time round Bruce Robinson, spokesman for the festival, said that the new Lions Cancer Lodge was a fitting recipient. "Everybody knows someone who has suffered from cancer," he said.
In fact, over the last six years (2004-2009), 94 people from Katikati utilised the lodge. In 2009, 17 people used the lodge - with Bay of Plenty cancer sufferers one of biggest users of the facility.
Cancer Society spokesperson Julia Wilson said it is not primarily Hamilton people use who the lodge "though they will in the new building when the Cancer Society will have its own services set up too - but mainly it is accommodation for families outside of Hamilton, for example the Bay of Plenty, King Country, Coromandel, Rotorua and outwards of these centres".
While this year sees a new Waikato/Bay of Plenty Cancer Society's Lions lodge taking shape in the grounds of the former Braemar Hospital - many families in the Katikati district are familiar with the amenities provided by the Lions lodge at the Waikato Hospital, since 1971.
Katikati resident Don Milne, aged 73, was diagnosed with breast cancer in May 2009. "I had surgery at Tauranga Hospital to remove part of a breast and my lymph nodes," he told the Advertiser. "From there I went to Waikato Hospital for an assessment for chemotherapy and radiation. I couldn't receive chemo [due to a heart condition] but was offered radiation treatment and I took it."
Over the six and a half weeks of treatment, he often stayed at the Lions lodge.
"It was great," he said. "In my particular situation, information and support for men with breast cancer is minimal."
At his first mealtime, he was introduced to a table of four ladies suffering from breast cancer and Don said what he learned about it "was quite incredible".
"When you've been told you have cancer it's like a death sentence and the biggest thing is getting your head around it - that is how the place really helped me while I was there."
Don said there were many advantages in staying at a facility solely for people suffering from a cancer of some sort.
"Nothing is swept under the carpet. I had a fellow guest rub cream on my radiation burns. The support from other sufferers, the staff and volunteers was amazing."
Don said, "You only got out what you put in" with guests required to assist with meals, dishes and bed-making - and many of them spent hours together getting through a "tough time", so it was a place of support and hope as well as an accommodation facility for out-of-towners.
"If you were feeling crook someone would knock on your door and ask if you were alright," said Don. "It was magic."
Since its inception eight years ago, The Katikati Avocado Food and Wine Festival has generated more than $40,000 of funds for the community.
The new lodge project will cost $14,150,000 and the Cancer Society society has requested the public's help to raise $4.25 million to cover costs of the rebuild and renovation.
This year's festival raffle also has fantastic prizes up for grabs and proceeds will go to the new Lions Cancer Lodge in Hamilton.