Blessed Box

Funding Stories

Otago Community Trust was delighted to be one of the first funders to provide support to the newly established charitable trust ‘Blessed Box’ in December 2020. An $8,000 grant was awarded to support the newly established charity who are focused on trying to assist as many new mums as they can in the Clutha District.

The charity has been overwhelmed by all the supporters and volunteers. Blessed Box have been working towards hosting a cooking session each month in 2021 to ensure that they can distribute “curated” food boxes to new mothers in Clutha. Each blessed box the charity produces contains a prepared family meal, cupcakes and a breastfeeding/sleep deprivation snack pack for a mother with a new baby.

The very first cooking session at the Tokomairiro High School’s food technology suite saw 15 meals prepared for new Clutha mums with a lot of the produce kindly donated by the local community and businesses in the district.

Since February, a further 50 blessed boxes have been delivered to new Clutha mums. It is heart-warming to see new charities being established in the Otago region to support such worthy causes.

“Blessed Box was born out of a desire to provide better support to mothers during the first six weeks postpartum, as this can be a particularly challenging time in a mother’s life.” “Sleep deprivation, breastfeeding challenges, hormonal, relational and environmental changes are just some of the challenge’s mothers experience during this time.”

Blessed Box co-founder Olivia Mathieson