Hope Mobile Laundry and Shower Services owner Kiri McKee (second from left) with sister Kelly McKee (left), Pastor Phillip Husband from Harrison Street Community Church and friend Shirley Dollimore.
Hope Mobile Laundry and Shower Services owner Kiri McKee (second from left) with sister Kelly McKee (left), Pastor Phillip Husband from Harrison Street Community Church and friend Shirley Dollimore.
A Whanganui woman has taken caring for the homeless community into her own hands.
Kiri McKee launched Hope Mobile Shower and Laundry Services with the help of her partner Iven Maxwell last year. Using a repurposed horse float, they offer free shower and laundry services to those inneed across Whanganui.
“You do a lot of thinking when you’re having a shower or you have a bath ... a place to just give back some dignity,” McKee said.
She came up with the idea after driving past the former homeless hub on Taupō Quay one day in 2023.
“Just seeing families down there in the tents and a woman crawling out on her knees, you know, on the gravel surface. That was the last [straw] for me.”
That same day, she put out a call on social media looking for anyone willing to offload an old horse float.
McKee had previously contacted Orange Sky, a national organisation that provides shower and laundry services, but they said it was too expensive to begin an operation in Whanganui at that stage.
“I thought, no, bugger it ... I’m going to do it myself.”
She found a float and went to work on it with the help of her partner.
Hope has since become a family endeavour, involving her son Justin and granddaughter Amelia-Grace, along with friends and anyone else willing to lend a hand.
Kiri McKee put out a call for an old horse float that could be refurbished.
McKee said her drive behind Hope came from her own experiences, not always having access to a safe space while growing up.
“As a child, I didn’t have much, and sometimes I was put in situations where I was not safe.
“I made [myself] a safe space under my house. It was a dirt floor covered in stones. I swept the stones away and made it something.”
Over seven months, they stripped and rebuilt a horse float, paying for supplies through sausage sizzles, other fundraising efforts and donations.
They launched the trailer, with one shower and a washing machine, on January 1, 2024.
Before and after - the horse float now has a shower and washing machine.
The services are available weekly at Harrison Street Community Church Hall on Thursdays between 10am and 1 pm alongside free community meals provided by To Be Kai Unity.
People in need of the services can also make contact through Hope’s Facebook page, where McKee will arrange to bring the trailer to their home.
McKee plans to expand Hope, offering services to more people in need.
Her services are also open to those who are differently abled or the elderly, who cannot use the bathrooms in their own homes because they do not cater to their needs.
They also plan to launch “Hope Two”, a second repurposed horse float featuring two shower rooms that will be able to run with its own built-in water supply. The funding for Hope Two was supplied through an anonymous charity donation.
“[I] made something out of nothing to benefit our community in need,” McKee said.
