On The Up: Sisters & Co charity lunch raises $26,700 for Aerocool Rescue Helicopter

Mount Maunganui-based department store Sisters & Co raised more than $25,000 for the Aerocool Rescue Helicopter at a charity lunch on Wednesday. Photo / Nicole Troost

A Mount Maunganui fashion business has raised more than $25,000 by bringing together some of New Zealand’s most talented designers to support a rescue helicopter service.

Sisters & Co hosted the Winter Solstice Charity Lunch and auction on Wednesday, with 100% of proceeds going to the title="https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/how-the-aerocool-rescue-helicopter-saved-geoffs-life/M6GQO2CKWVG4ZAA3E5NMWS5FGA/?ref=readmore">Aerocool Rescue Helicopter.

It was a cause close to the hearts of the luxury department store’s founders, Rodelle Payne and husband Logan Payne.

The helicopter service saved their friend Bryce McFall’s life a decade ago, and he was proud to be at the event to share his story.

Guests travelled from the Maunganui Rd store to Tauranga restaurant Clarence via a fleet of chauffeured Range Rovers, and bid on donated auction items including a private jet experience.

Key fashion names in attendance included Juliette Souter (Marle), Rebe Burgess (REBE), Jasmin Scott (Jasmin Sparrow) and Emma Winter (La Tribe).

Rodelle Payne said the idea was born from a deeply personal experience, with close friends “profoundly impacted by a tragic accident”.

She said thanks to the extraordinary efforts of rescue helicopters, lives were saved.

“We’re also incredibly close and have the utmost respect for our friend Bryce McFall, who quite literally owes his life to the air ambulance.”

She said, having witnessed how vital the helicopter service was, she felt a “deep responsibility” to give back.

“We wanted to do something meaningful through an event that brings people together while raising vital awareness and funds for a cause close to our hearts but essential to our community.”

The event raised $26,700 for Aerocool Rescue Helicopter.

McFall was injured in an incident in the Mamaku Forest in 2002.

Bryce McFall was in an accident in 2002, where an air ambulance helicopter saved his life. Photo / Nicole Troost

McFall said he believed he wouldn’t have survived without the helicopter, given the situation in which the injury occurred.

“I was marshalling for a motorcycle club in the Mamaku Forest, and I hit some slippery clay on a quad bike; it spun out, and I got flicked off.”

He ended up with no bruises but “one little break” to his neck.

“I’m a very high-level tetraplegic; that was my final injury.”

McFall said emergency services were second-to-none, and he was proud to be able to share his story at the charity lunch.

“It is such a shame that they aren’t fully funded, and it’s up to great individuals and organisations, like what Rodelle has done, to create some extra funding.”

The Aerocool Rescue Helicopter was founded in 2000 and provides 24-hour air emergency medical service in the coastal Bay of Plenty.

In April, it carried out 36 life-saving missions.

These included 13 inter-hospital transfers, three medical events, 11 rural/farm incidents, two motor vehicle accidents and seven other missions.

The hospital transfers served patients in Tauranga, Whakatāne and Rotorua.

Crew were also called to remote locations such as Mōtītī Island, Matakana Island, Hahei and Waihau Bay.

McFall told the Bay of Plenty Times the helicopter service was an “essential” service to the Bay of Plenty community.

“When you look at the topography for this area, you’ve got the Kaimai Range, all the forestry around Rotorua, as well as our coastline.

“Without a helicopter, so much of that is inaccessible to anybody on recreation, working, playing, or whatever it may be.”

Designer and founder of New Zealand jewellery company Jasmin Sparrow, Jasmin Scott, said the event was about spreading the word.

Jasmin Scott (left), founder and designer at Jasmin Sparrow, and Rodelle Payne, founder of Sisters & Co. Photo / Nicole Troost

“It’s a shame that it takes something so devastating for us to realise the importance of these services that are available.”

She said donating items through her business was a small way she could help an important cause.

“If anything was ever to happen to anyone close to us, we would want to know that there was support in place for these services to continue being available in the community.”

Kaitlyn Morrell is a multimedia journalist for the Bay of Plenty Times and Rotorua Daily Post. She has lived in the region for several years and studied journalism at Massey University.