Cancer care advocate Melissa Vining was humbled and surprised to be named as a semi-finalist for the KiwiBank New Zealander of the Year award – but said she believed it was only possible due to the incredible team effort shown from all of Southland. 

“I definitely did not expect it,” she said. 

“The whole [Charity] hospital project is a reflection of all of the hard work of all the volunteers and our amazing community, all the business support and all the generous donations, the success of the ‘Buy a Brick’ campaign, none of that is just me, it’s whole team of people and our whole community just getting the job done.”

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Since losing her husband Blair to cancer in October 2019, Melissa has kept Blair’s dream alive of building a charity hospital in Southland.

The couple were saddened to find that access to good cancer care in Southland was hard to get, so they set about changing it so no other family in the community would have to go through the same heart-breaking struggle. 

Now both household names, Blair and Melissa campaigned tirelessly for a year before Blair died and just a little more than a year after his death, the Southland Charity Hospital is about to enter the building and renovation phase in February. 

Vining said she had been blown away by how much had been achieved in such a short space of time. 

“It’s a five-year project that’s potentially going to be completed in two years.”

The Southland Charity Hospital Has raised more than $900,000 through the ‘Buy a Brick’ campaign, with millions more raised through an array of community funding events and business donations. 

The Invercargill Licencing Trust donated the former Clifton pub, which will be home to the new hospital.

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All going well, construction work is set to begin next month, with completion expected by early 2022.

Vining said just a few more trades volunteers were needed to help kick off the work in February, and she hoped to have those extra hands sorted soon. 

“We have a project manager appointed now, so he’ll manage all the volunteers,” she said.

“We’re just working through those finer details now to make sure that we’re really efficient with the use of the volunteers.”

Vining is one of 10 semi-finalists in the running for the annual KiwiBank New Zealander of the Year award.

The Award celebrates Kiwis from all walks of life; those who inspire, give hope, lead, and use their passion to make Aotearoa a better place. 

Before he died, Blair was also shortlisted for the award.

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“[But] you can’t win it if you die,” laughed Vining.

“So, I feel like it’s also, you know, an acknowledgement of what he started for all of us,” she said.

She added that that her being named as a semi-finalist might have started with Blair, but it had continued because of the tremendous support from the people of Southland.

“I’m just constantly in awe of how amazing our community is, you know from five-year-olds saving their own money to buy their own bricks, to people and businesses writing out big cheques, everyone’s just working together to get it done, so I don’t feel like I’m doing anything extraordinary, it’s the people of our community that are all working together to do it.”

Three finalists will be announced for for the New Zealander of the Year Award on Monday, March 1, with winners announced at the New Zealander of the Year Awards Gala Dinner in Auckland on Wednesday, March 31.