Alan Limmer
As Alan Limmer flew back to Napier from cyclone-ravaged Vanuatu last Sunday he recognised a fellow passenger - "a mate from Furnware" was how he put it.
Mr Limmer told him about the devastation, and how he was lucky the home he has there escaped the worst of it, but how so many "great people" had lost almost everything.
He talked about how he was determined to do everything he could to be part of the huge rebuilding task ahead and that he had already sorted a container and made contact with people across the Hawke's Bay building supplies industry.
"He took it all in and then said 'do you need some desks and chairs?'."
Mr Limmer said yes, every piece of equipment, materials or furniture was vital.
"So he's offered to put a few in the container."
It was then another passenger said he was in the photocopier business and asked if a photocopier would be useful.
"This is how it has been - people here have been just fantastic," Mr Limmer said.
As indeed had many of the locals in the Havannah Harbour region, where he finished building his "winter house" last November.
Mr Limmer had been back in Hawke's Bay when the cyclone struck and had been uncertain how well his property had come through it.
It came through virtually unscathed, as it was built in the lee of a mountainous stretch which deflected some of the cyclone.
He knew many of his neighbours, the locals, would have fared badly in their basic, modest tin and timber houses.
He got a flight back 10 days ago and spent a week taking in the "terrible damage".
He also noticed that while cyclone-driven rain had clearly blasted through the small window edge gaps, leaving tell-take stains, the interior was dry and clean. It turned out his neighbour Gabby, a gardener and painter, and his family had made sure Mr Limmer's house was clean and everything dry for when he returned.
"Yet his house was very badly damaged. - this is the great people they are."
So the determination to help rebuild Gabby's house, and the homes of others around him, and the damaged local kindergarten, was born there and then.
Mr Limmer began making calls back to his mates in the Bay, including fishing buddy Dave Whitaker of Hastings, and got the ball rolling. He said communications were often sporadic and getting calls and e-mails through had been challenging, but it was all coming together.
"Tumu Timbers and ITM are helping us, and so are Stratco - they have been great and are providing building materials gratis."
A container company was also reducing its rates and Mr Limmer and Mr Whitaker are hopeful they can get it packed and away by the end of the week.
Both men have been visitors to Vanuatu, for the fishing, for three years and had grown to appreciate and cherish the friendliness of the locals.
"Now we are going to do everything we can to give them a hand," Mr Limmer said, adding he had also got two mates from the building industry to head over with them for a spot of hammer and nail work.
As well as building materials and wares like bedding and clothing and general household items food and water had been critical.
He said the many expat Kiwis and Australians who had homes in Vanuatu had done their own aid collections - buying what they could and getting it out to the isolated islands by private boat.
"Everyone is pitching in and at the end of the day Vanuatu is going to come out a better place because the infrastructure will be stronger."