Hello Rotary, 

Dear Fellow Rotarians, 

Firstly, we would like to thank the many individual Rotarians and clubs within New Zealand, across the Tasman, and around the world for your response to this call for support after the tragic shootings in Christchurch on March 15th. 

This all developed rather spontaneously, and the response has been overwhelmingly positive. We have of course anticipated that written acknowledgements and receipts are essential, and a spreadsheet of donors has been maintained which we will process as soon as possible. 

As this evolved it quickly it became clear that the support from Rotary would be required in two key stages; responding to immediate need, and establishing a longer term fund in which Rotary and leaders within our local Islamic community will work together in providing continued support into the medium and long term. 

Over the past couple of weeks, a number of Rotarians including myself have been volunteering at the Support Centre and Hub set up at Hagley Park by the city council and local Muslim leadership, to provide a place for victims and effected families from that community to seek support and access immediate help. 

Through this we have been able to get to know key people and undertake a degree of diligence with regards to the level and types of need required and how best to distribute this. 

We have also seen how absolute and devastating the trauma associated with this event has been and the stories heard will stay with us for a long time to come. 

We have closed an effective "stage 1" of this appeal at $50,000 which is being handed over to the Canterbury Muslim Community Trust (coordinating direct support to victims and families via the support hub based at Hagley Park). Today we are handing over $25,000 in grocery, petrol and taxi vouchers and a further $25,000 in cash into a medium-term fund run by that trust to provide counselling and psychological support in a culturally appropriate way.