Starship is New Zealand’s national children’s hospital, firmly focused on providing sustainable world class healthcare for all New Zealand children. Since 1992 the Starship Foundation has invested more than $135 million into Starship Child Health, helping bring better health and brighter futures to children across New Zealand every day.
There are nearly 135,000 patient visits to Starship Child Health each year including around 1,000 outreach clinics all around the country. The Foundation invests in impact programs which focus on equity to ensure no child is left behind, prevention to keep our children safe and healthy in the community, programs which save and extend lives, new technology and treatments which result in faster recovery and better outcomes, as well as supporting patient wellbeing, lifting spirits, emotional and family support.
“Caring for our community is a cornerstone of our family-owned business and Starship is a natural partner for us to support given its tremendous and on-going impact on the health and well-being of children.” Peter Thompson, Barfoot & Thompson Managing Director.
Barfoot & Thompson has been a sponsor of the Starship Foundation since 2003 and a Five-Star Partner since 2004, raising over $6 million during that time through a variety of creative and fun activities.
From company-wide initiatives, branch fundraising events and individual sales people’s efforts, the company is involved at every level to support the hospital and the people that are making a difference to Kiwi children’s lives.
The money we have raised has gone towards state-of-the-art medical technology such as oximeters, a new operating room, and refreshing procedure rooms and wards around the hospital. Most recently, we have supported two major projects - the development of Whare Hauora, and the expansion and refurbishment of the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU).
Barfoot & Thompson has come up with a tasty and topical new way to add to its longstanding support of Starship.
Featuring over 115 recipes of kitchen favourites from staff across its 75+ branches in Auckland and Northland, ‘Recipes from our Bubbles’ celebrates not only the regions’ diversity but the sense of connectivity and community that comes through sharing food.
From its inception in June 2020, this mighty little cookbook raised a total of $75,786 for the Starship Foundation and the brighter futures of New Zealand tamariki.
Thank you to all those who contributed their kitchen favourite, helped with the promotion and sale of each copy, and trusted our staff’s expertise in the heart of the home. Ka pai!
The Barfoot & Thompson Magic of Reading programme sees every child who spends a night in Starship Hospital receive a free book that they can take home with them. In just under 3 years, we have utilised a local NZ book supplier to gift over 52,000 books for Starship Children, and in the 18 years we have been supporting the Magic of Reading programme, we have given nearly 200,000 books with help from the Starship Foundation.
To celebrate 16 years of the Magic of Reading programme in 2020, we rounded up some of our favourite Sports Stars to bring Kiwi kids the Magic of Reading Story Book series. We believe reading is something everyone can engage with, whether it’s from a hospital room or seeking entertainment from home.
In the series, you will see Kiwi celebs bringing life to our Young Author’s Story Books. For over 10 years we ran a Young Author’s Challenge that saw thousands of original stories submitted from primary and intermediate aged children. The stories that our celebs are sharing with you were crowned the winning stories from their year, made into books and illustrated by Kevin Mealamu and other kiwi greats such as Benny Tipene, Otis Frizzell and more. The money from the books was then donated to Starship.
Get the kids ready to enjoy our videos of kiwi celebrities reading stories out loud, written by kiwi children.
Whare Hauora is a purpose built mobile health pod that is located at local primary schools to provide accessible healthcare to the local low decile community. The first of its kind in New Zealand, in 2018 Barfoot & Thompson helped fund the health facility to give support to vulnerable children in our communities.
The fit-for purpose facility provides a space for healthcare services, ranging from prevention to specialist clinics, to be delivered alongside education in the school environment. Combining education and accessibility to healthcare services greatly reduces barriers to learning that illness or an inability to seek out a medical professional can create.
In 2019 we helped to fund the Starship Foundation’s very exciting expansion of the Neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). This included the redesign of clinical storage area, parent infant nursery and reception space as well as the refurbishment of the NICU interview room. This has made significant improvements to the intensive care unit specializing in the care of ill or premature newborn infants.
In lockdown and beyond, Barfoot & Thompson has been supporting the Starship Foundation's new mum wellbeing initiative (a joint effort with the Well Foundation and Middlemore). Becoming a new mum can be tough, however when you add a global pandemic and a nationwide lockdown, it becomes even more of an economic and emotional struggle.
We donated $100,000 to create care packs that were filled with essential items for vulnerable new Mums and babies. Our staff also jumped on board to support by rolling up their sleeves and volunteering their time to help with packing the care packs. Already 300 packs have been created with more to come. Each pack included a personalised written note from staff members from all across our Auckland and Northland branches.
We loved being part of this initiative, making a difference where it matters most.
We were also proud to support the introduction of the new NICU Journal App which allows parents to keep a digital journal of the milestones during their child’s journey through the Neonatal ICU. This app allows precious first moments and updates to be recorded and easily shared via their mobile with friends, family and loved ones. This is free to parents and caregivers and was specially designed for Starship NICU families.
