2022 calendars to boost funds for Toko wharf

COMMUNITY INITIATIVE:Lois McCarthy-Robinson and trust volunteer John Robinson with the 2022 calendar. Picture by Rebecca Grunwell

For the eighth year Tokomaru Bay Heritage Trust is selling calendars to help fund the wharf restoration project.

The aim is to collect $6 million to fully restore the wharf.

Trust member Lois McCarthy-Robinson said the calendar sale was an annual fundraising initiative to contribute to the fund.

“We sell 500 calendars each year and raise about $10,000 which goes towards the project,” she said.

This year's calendar has 13 handpicked historical photos of the wharf, the freezing works and of Tokomaru Bay, to serve as a reminder of what it was in its prime.

Friend of the trust and historian John Robinson said one of the unique photos of the calendar told the story of a man called Chappe whose family once owned a business of transporting commodities such as stock and wool using horses and carts.

“The business later expanded to 50 trucks and lasted for about 60 years. These goods were taken to the wharf and put on the small ships that headed for Napier,” he said.

Ms McCarthy-Robinson says the trust is a part of a delegation that will go to Wellington next year to ask for funding for the project, alongside the Gisborne District Council and Trust Tairawhiti.

Trustees and friends of the trust will be in Gisborne's city centre tomorrow selling the 2022 calendars, outside the HB Williams Memorial Library in Peel Street from 9am to 12midday.