Wellington Childrens Foundation Incorporated

8/214 Oriental Parade, Oriental Bay, Wellington 6011
e-mail: wellingtonchildrensfoundation@gmail.com

Background of the Foundation

The Wellington Childrens Foundation was born out of the Citizens’ Day Nursery, and incorporated that organisation’s aims and ideals in the provision of help and care for some of the more vulnerable in our society.

The Nursery served the community for more than 60 years, having been founded during World War One to help unmarried mothers and, latterly, less-well-off families. Because of its history of good work, the Day Nursery’s closure in the early 1980s provoked controversy, but much of the criticism was ill-informed. The truth was that the building housing the Nursery was over one hundred years old and in such a dilapidated condition that it failed to meet Social Welfare’s licensing requirements. As a voluntary, non-profit organisation, we did not have the capital to finance its replacement. Reluctantly, and on the best advice, we were obliged to sell the Vivian Street site. The cash residue of that sale, after meeting existing loans and obligations, became the basis of an investment, the fruits of which are seen in the regular contributions we have been able to make to worthy childrens causes throughout the Wellington district.

The committee of the Day Nursery voted unanimously for the transfer of identity, and became the driving force of the new facility. Voluntary help in legal, accounting and welfare fields had been generously forthcoming. In this regard, special tribute needs to be paid to the late Sir John Mowbray who, as our fiscal watchdog and advisor, steered us to the security which permits us to function as the viable and caring institution we are today — and hopefully will continue to be long into the future.