Amanda Kittow was one of a dozen men and women from farming families who ditched their clothes to support the calendar raising funds for the Rural Support Trust Hawke’s Bay
In a time when Hawke’s Bay farmers were experiencing a drought like no other since the 1980s as well as dealing with the consequences of COVID19, Poppy Renton wanted to reach out and foster a dose of community spirit.
The daughter of a fifth generation Hawke’s Bay farmer working the land at Maraekakaho, west of Hastings, Poppy created a ‘Hawke’s Bay Drought’ page on Facebook.
“You didn’t come this far to only come this far…” – a message written on a bale of feed donated to struggling Hawke’s Bay farmers.
The page became a place for farmers to share their drought stories, swap tips on making cheap water troughs, accessing spreaders, etc., and most importantly it was a platform for people to connect with each other.
In amongst these stories, Poppy posted a nude photo as a way of encouraging farming folk to “bare all” and reach out to get help when times were tough. Her reasoning was that if you could ditch your clothes for a photo, it wasn’t such a big thing to ditch your hesitancy about admitting you could do with some support to ease stress and depression.
The feedback was super positive, and from that, the idea of a 2021 calendar to raise funds for the Rural Support Trust Hawke’s Bay blossomed.
“While there have been previous droughts in Hawke’s Bay this one was longer and harder than most have ever experienced and together with the pandemic restrictions meant a lot were having to face these struggles alone,” calendar project team member Salli Baldock, the Federated Farmers Territory Manager for the district, said.
“Normally you would be able to go to the stock yard and sell stock, but also talk to your friends. But you couldn’t, and going to the pub with your friends for an off load of stress was also lost.”
Once one photo popped up on the HB Drought page, more followed and Sally Charteris, Jessie and I saw the opportunity of creating this calendar, not only to celebrate the candid photos of these amazing men and women, at a time of struggle and the unknown, but take these moments to raise some money to go back to the HB Farming community, Salli said.
“The Rural Support Trust has worked relentlessly through the drought dealing with many people in stressful and sometimes terminal outcomes and just quietly getting on.”
- The 2021 calendars cost $20 and are available from Farmlands in Napier and Hastings,l PGG Wrightson Hastings or by emailing hbdroughtcalendar@gmail.com