The Kāpiti Strawberry Festival will be bathed in sunshine on Saturday 16 November (according to the forecast) so Kāpiti Coasters and Visitors will likely flock to Kāpiti School on Rimu Rd, Paraparaumu to take part in the festivities.
As an important part of the Kāpiti social calendar, the Strawberry Festival has stood the test of time and has raised large sums for our Kāpiti Mary Potter Hospice.
Where else could you dunk into a cold (?) water tank, the Kāpiti Mayor Janet Holborow, Local MP Tim Costley, Our own champion All Black Dane Coles, Celebrity Realtor Kieren Howard, and local Radio personality Andy Hunter.
Then celebrate with superb fresh strawberries and ice cream. Plenty to do all day long for the whole family.
Where it all began.
In 2006 a small group of volunteers began running the Mary Potter Hospice Strawberry Festival at MacLean Park, Paraparaumu Beach. The purpose was to raise money for the Mary Potter Hospice Kāpiti base and from small beginnings the festival rapidly grew to become a popular annual event.
Originally, the primary focus was the sale of strawberries and ice cream with other charitable stalls run by the volunteers selling plants, linen, BBQ’d food, and offering face painting, a bouncy castle, and a massage service. The event was linked together with six hours of continuous music and entertainment based around a central stage.
Over time the Hospice Strawberry Festival has been an important fundraising and public awareness event on the Hospice’s calendar with over 8,000 punnets of strawberries and 1,000 litres of ice cream consumed per year raising thousands of dollars.
Our annual event is now held at Kāpiti Primary School – a much bigger space for us to set up more stalls and activities, with the main stage providing all day entertainment and demonstrations and the Mary Potter Hospice strawberry tent as the heart of our sweet festival.
This year, after successfully bringing our beloved strawberries back into the fore, we are excited to see what wonderful things await us. We look forward to bringing another brilliant day out to Kāpiti in November.
Mary Potter Hospice – supporting our community.
Mary Potter Hospice provides quality palliative care services – all free-of-charge – across Wellington, Porirua and Kāpiti. The hospice supports people in their own homes, in aged residential care or wherever they live. The Inpatient Unit and head office is in Newtown and supports community care with short term acute admissions for symptom and pain relief, for respite care and for end-of-life care. There are community bases in Porirua and Kāpiti which the community teams work from.
The Hospice takes a whole person approach to the care that they provide. They provide high-quality and promote specialist palliative care, grief support, education and care planning services. The Hospice works alongside other healthcare practitioners with the aim of making a difference in the communities that they serve.
Every donation counts.
The money received from the Kāpiti Strawberry Festival makes a huge contribution to helping keep the service free for the people of Kāpiti. The money is retained in Kāpiti and spent on the care of the patients.
Donate directly to Mary Potter Hospice here: www.marypotter.org.nz/support-us/donations/
