Grieving Whanganui parents raise $4000 in meningitis fundraiser

Tarsha Boniface and her daughter Chloe who passed away last year. Photo / Supplied

A month-long fundraising effort has come up with more than $4000 for the New Zealand Meningitis Foundation.

The fundraiser was led by Tarsha and Ricky Boniface, whose daughter, Chloe Boniface, died from meningitis in November last year.

Tarsha said it was one way the family could deal with the grief of losing Chloe, while also raising awareness and funds.

Starting with a goal of $1000, the fundraiser ran for almost all of last month and culminated on World Meningitis Day on April 24.

Tarsha said they used many different ways to get the community involved and support the initiative.

"The Meningitis Foundation has wrist bands that a group of girls from the South Island made for one of their friends who passed away from meningitis a few years back.

"So we were selling those, we had a local tattooist give us vouchers to raffle off, we were just asking for donations to get as much as we can in a short amount of time but not to bombard people every day about donating."

18 year-old Chloe Boniface died from meningitis in her dorm room at Victoria University, Wellington.

It was shortly after the fundraiser began that Tarsha realised the community was really ready to donate and help the cause, more than she ever expected.

"We thought lets go for $1000, then we thought we might get to $1500 when the tattoo vouchers came in from Inksmiths.

"We were blown away by the community effort, tickets for the tattoo raffles went like hotcakes, it was just amazing."

With the fundraiser being so successful, Tarsha says it may have to be an annual undertaking.

"I think it's going to be a goal for every April now, it's something that we can focus on to give Chloe a voice.

"it's amazing the amount of people who said they didn't know about the symptoms and didn't know there's vaccinations, and it just gets people talking.

"If one month during our lives I can focus on that and do everything we can, we'll just keep doing it until we can't do it anymore."