On The Up: Community builds a new library for flood-hit Ōmāhu School

Ōmāhu School was badly flooded during Cyclone Gabrielle. Photo / Warren Buckland

After the flood comes rebirth.

When Cyclone Gabrielle ripped through the small rural settlement of Ōmāhu in the Hastings district in February 2023, the local school was among the hardest-hit places, with floodwaters almost destroying every building on the school grounds.

Amid the devastation, the school’s library building and collection were lost to the raging floodwaters.

The loss quickly came to the attention of Hastings District Libraries staff, who had been working with the school on reading and literacy programmes before the cyclone.

Once things had started to resemble normality for the library staff, they reconnected with the school, which was then operating out of Irongate School hall in Flaxmere, and asked how they could help.

A house in Ōmāhu after Cyclone Gabrielle. Photo / Paul Taylor

Libraries community engagement team leader Carla Crosbie said the team sat down with school principal at the time, Te Kewena White, to talk about how they could help, and were told the school did not have the time or resources to take on the challenge of rebuilding the library and collection.

So in early April 2023, Hastings Library staff formed a project team with representatives from the National Library Services to Schools and made a successful application for funding through the School Library Collection Recovery initiative.

This enabled the team to order more than 2500 books and 34m of mobile shelving.

“It wasn’t just about replacing books,” Crosbie said.

“It was about designing a collection and space that supported how Ōmāhu tamariki learn and thrive.”

Flaxmere-raised musician Tipene Harmer also chipped in for the project, helping purchase specialty library software to manage the new collection.

Part-way through the project, White stepped down as the school’s principal and local kaiako/teacher Kate Crawford took up the role, facing the next challenge of replacing the library building.

The Ministry of Education had no plans or funding for a dedicated library building at Ōmāhu School, so the project team stepped in again, connecting with council funding specialists and community groups like Stortford Lodge Rotary Club and Lions International.

Their combined efforts raised enough to fund a stand-alone, fully fitted-out library building complete with ramp access, air-conditioning, carpet and shelving.

The building is now owned by the Ōmāhu School Board of Trustees and will serve generations of learners for years to come.

The opening ceremony of Ōmāhu School's new library.

Crawford said the replacement of the school’s library was about more than books.

“It was about hope, recovery and the future of our tamariki,” she said.

“The rebuild of the Ōmāhu School library shows the power of collaboration and what’s possible when a community comes together.”