Dave | Kaitāia, Northland

“There was a post that I saw on Facebook yesterday, where a woman who had a payment card to buy some groceries had it declined, and so she went back to her car apparently to get another payment or get the money in order to pay for her groceries and when she came back in, someone had already paid for the groceries for her. I think it was around $200 for a trolley full of groceries, and so that kind of impressed me. 

For me personally, I get acts of kindness all the time from my family members. My wife in particular, she’s always kind to me, in terms of making sure that I’m alright, both emotionally and my well-being in general. It’s swings and roundabouts. You know? So, I’ve got to do that back. I’ve got to always check in and see how she’s doing, see how the kids are doing,  ask how everyone else is doing, and it extends even further to our extended family, how are they doing, and then to the community. But for me, it’s just a case of small acts of kindness from family members. 

I think the more things that we do that are kind, I think the more growth as a nation, as people, as a family, and as individuals. We find ourselves on a trajectory towards being better, towards growing, towards whatever is next, So for me being kind is essential, and it also helps you to put things into perspective, as well. If you’re kind to other people, you tend to appreciate the things that you have more. The more acts of kindness you can perform for other people, the more outward looking you are, towards how is that person, how is my family, how is my colleague at work? I think we’ll be better as a people, better as a family, better as a nation.

I was born in West Auckland,  Waitākere. When I was four years old, I moved to the North Shore in Auckland, and I was pretty much raised on the North Shore. Worked from the North Shore. Studied on the North Shore. Moved to Sydney for a few years, and then from Sydney moved to Kaitāia, to the Far North. I’m just loving it up here.

What I value? I think family first. Once you can sort out your family, and get to grips with the value of family, then you kind of extend that to friends, extend that to the community. So people in general. People are what we value, our relationships, friendships.”