She lives and runs a business in Shirley and goes to the cafe to connect with people.
Said Roper-Gee: “I’ve definitely made loads of connections.”
She said if the community cafe did not exist, “I think that networking opportunity would be a huge loss.”
The cafe may not be possible if it was not for the support of fundraising superpower, the Rata Foundation. It provides $20 million a year to groups and organisations, including $16 million to those in Canterbury.
Without these grants, the trust would not have been able to pay the wages of its seven part-time staff.
If it were not for the foundation, trust finance manager Ann Powley said it would have: “Less hours and less staff capacity to support such programmes, which means you have to start looking at which programmes to continue with and which programmes you need to not run, or cut down on, or not develop further.
“Their support has been constant over the last few years and to have a grant that is constant gives you confidence to plan into the future, rather than facing uncertainty of how much you’ll be able to do or not do.”
Powley said without the trust: “I think there would be less connection and I think mental health as a whole would deteriorate.”
The grants which helped the trust are just some of the between 700 and 1000 the foundation provides each year.
Since forming as The Canterbury Community Trust in 1988, changing its name to the Rata Foundation in 2015, it has granted more than $380m in Canterbury.
More than half a billion dollars has gone to its four funding regions, Canterbury, Marlborough, Nelson, and the Chatham Islands.
Foundation chief executive Leighton Evans said other groups and projects it has supported include Māori health and social services provider He Waka Tapu and Christchurch Aunties, a network of more than 4200 people helping women and children.
The foundation played a pivotal role in the Halswell Hornets rugby league club being able to start building their new clubrooms, a replacement for the earthquake-damaged original at Halswell Domain.
“If it hadn’t been for Rata Foundation (plus the Lottery Grants Board and Canterbury West Coast Air Rescue Trust) supporting us in the last two or three months we basically wouldn’t have been able to do it (the $2 million project),” said Halswell Hornets vice-president Jeff Whittaker.
The foundation contributed about $100,000 to help the club deal with a $400,000 shortfall. Construction began on March 17.
Evans said some of the foundation’s most noteworthy grants have been $5 million for The Court Theatre to help open its new premises after the February 22, 2011 earthquake, $500,000 towards the new helicopter pad at Christchurch Hospital and the ongoing grants it provides to the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra for programmes supporting groups including Maori and women in prison.
“What we find is that behind every organisation is an amazing story, and that’s not only stories about the communities they serve, but also, I suppose, the people that actually directly benefit from that.
“Our tagline is to invest in communities, so we love that face to face engagement and that real human connection, and that’s what separates us, I think, from a lot of the other funders,” said Evans.
Any incorporated, not-for-profit society, association or organisation can apply for grants from the foundation.
Evans said the foundation is funded through a portfolio of investments it has made since forming.
Its funds originated from the proceeds of the sale of Trust Bank, which it distributed to not-for-profit organisations.
