Good in the Hood helps Hospice

Getting behind Z's Good in the Hood are Lexia Blackstock (Hospice volunteer), Umu Bullock (Z assistant store manager), Mel Tamou and Damien Kiddie (Hospice volunteers), Davene Vroon, Valda Brechmanis and Kelly Scarrow (Hospice Whanganui). Photo / Paul Brooks

Good in the Hood is back and Hospice is part of the action.
Good in the Hood is a Z promotion in which the company shares $700,000 among 10 chosen charities throughout New Zealand, according to how many votes each gets from Z customers. Voting is done by placing an orange token into the appropriate clear plastic box. Hospice New Zealand is one of the 10, so, last Wednesday, Hospice Whanganui went down to Z to give the votes a push.

Volunteers took it in shifts to clean windscreens and promote Hospice Whanganui as a good cause for the customers' orange token votes.

"Z stations have been a long time supporter of Hospice, locally here in Whanganui and also nationally," says Hospice Whanganui chief executive, Davene Vroon. "Over the course of the last year, Z has reviewed their contribution strategy and they've decided what they want to do is select 10 national charities and Hospice New Zealand is one of them. Out of those 10, every local Z station selects four they want to support locally. So we are delighted that we have been selected by Z to be one of the preferred four."

The promotion runs until the end of June.

How the voting system works. An orange token is dropped into the box of the chosen charity. At the end of the month, the money is allocated according to votes received. Photo / Paul Brooks

"We are just so grateful to the Whanganui community for showing their support in this way," says Davene. "Local businesses, local community, supporting local organisations in different ways." She says it's things like this that keep Hospice going and the community needs to understand how important each and every contribution can be. "It does make a significant difference to our budget, every year."

Hospice Whanganui also has more than 200 volunteers, without which the organisation could not operate.

"Hospice is a community team effort," says Davene.

Volunteers spent the day cleaning car windscreens and carrying orange tokens with which to encourage Z customers to vote.