Warrior braves coaching gloom to give out raincoats

Ben Henry's appearance at decile 1 Onepoto School in Northcote proved popular with the pupils. Photo / Jason Oxenham

Losing a coach didn't stop Warriors player Ben Henry from turning up to hand out raincoats to children at a state housing block in Northcote.

The league player, who has been out of action for most of the past year with a knee injury, stood in for Onepoto School's most famous ex-pupil, star fullback Kevin Locke. Locke's mother, Ola Locke, who was at the school to collect Locke's nephew and two nieces, said her son was returning from a promotional event in Perth.

Other parents said the raincoats provided by the KidsCan charity yesterday were really needed at a school which has the only decile 1 roll on the North Shore.

"Some of the children don't come to school if they haven't got jackets in winter," said Tania Te Rauna.

Another mother, Tangitangi Vave, said the children were excited to get coats bearing the Warriors' logo.

Mrs Te Rauna and Mrs Vave both volunteer at a Kickstart breakfast programme that has started at the school this year and usually draws 30 to 40 of the school's 106 children.

"We have it on a Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, those days the pay doesn't cover," said Mrs Vave.

Most families are on benefits and are paid on Thursdays.

Principal Marc Dombroski said he used a donation from a local church to buy 30 raincoats last year after seeing that up to a quarter of the students stayed home on wet days.

KidsCan head Julie Chapman, who founded the charity in 2005, said she continued to see worsening child poverty despite improving economic statistics. "The kind of poverty we are seeing is much worse than I saw nine years ago. It's really material hardship and hunger," she said. "I think a lot of families don't have enough money to meet the basic cost of living."

Henry said it would have been good if KidsCan had been around to hand out raincoats when he was growing up in Mt Roskill.

He said he was sad to lose coach Matt Elliott, who resigned yesterday.