Charity builds caravan of hope

THEY CARE: (From left) Stephen Comrie, Lea Pelzers and Willy Pelzers with the retro pink caravan. PICTURE / PAUL BROOKS

This year, The New Zealand Breast Cancer Foundation has been spreading the word about early breast cancer detection with the help of a retro styled pink caravan.
Bearing the Timeless Caravans marque, the vehicle is covering the country, inviting women to come and receive free breast health advice.
Right now, it's resident in Wanganui for a once-over before getting back on the road.
Willy and Lea Pelzers of Wilpro Custom Auto and Engineering in Wilson St play a vital role.
"I build all the chassis for Timeless Caravans," says Willy. "Earlier this year, about the
same time as our 30-year-old daughter, Monique, was diagnosed with breast cancer,
Kevin and Carlene Redshaw from Timeless Caravans in Palmerston North asked us to
build another caravan. They'd been approached by Breast Cancer NZ to build a caravan to
travel around the country to give advice on breast cancer. I said, 'Yep, I'm in. We'll build a
chassis.' I rang all my suppliers like Stephen [Comrie] at Repco. Through Trailcom and Trojan they supplied all the underpinnings - the hubs and stubs, brakes and suspension-
I then built the whole chassis.
Webforge in Palmerston North did all the galvanising for free; Steel and Tube in Palmerston North supplied the steel at less than cost. So we managed to stitch that together before it went back to Palmerston where Kevin put the body on and got it all painted. He got just about everything donated as well. Then John Fearn at Gunzzini Kitchens, who normally does the interiors for all Timeless Caravans, he came along once it was all together and did the interior."
The caravan has been on the road for four months, travelling from Kaitaia to Bluff. "Lots of people have donated their time to tow it all over the country," says Willy. "It would have done nearly 10,000km in the last four months. It's come back for some maintenance and servicing and in the new year it's back off again.
"In those four months, they already had at least a dozen women who have come in and
discovered they've got early stages of breast cancer, so it's doing its job."
With the caravan is a small pink book in which volunteers and workers write about their
experiences and each stage of the journey-a kind of caravan diary; already it has become a priceless historical document filled with writing and newspaper clippings.
Willy and Lea will add their own words before passing it on.
On its travels, the caravan passes through the jurisdiction of many health boards, each of
which supplies medical staff to man it, give advice and check for breast cancer.
"Our daughter's been through it all," says Lea, "She's had to go through six sessions of chemo and just finishing radiation. It's been awful." Suddenly Monique, who was planning a wedding, instead had to face triple negative breast cancer, which is very
aggressive. She still plans to marry in March, 2016.
Early detection is vital and that's where the caravan plays its part, thanks to a huge team of builders, health professionals and volunteers.