Hello Chocolate Queens & Kings, 

Now this is a Chocolate story of ex-Cadburys legends worth talking about New Zealand. In 2020 Megan Fairley started a non profit fundraising team called Project Hope & Beyond.  Megan Fairley had suffered from depression since leaving Cadburys, it was a redundancy that left some of our staff very broken. But battling depression and facing nasty stuff on top of depression simply drowns you and leaves you empty and extremely burnt out as an individual. To help put a hole in our bucket and empty this extreme stress we all needed something. That something was to give back to help others, “we rise when we lift others.” Our amazing team of inspirational ex-Cadbury individuals have pushed past the naysayers to raise over $40,000 to help our people of New Zealand. We believe in doing better, not bitter and inspiring people to take a more positive direction than looking for revenge. Project Hope & Beyond have been raising money for mental health for the last 3 years. In the last week we have been like so many other New Zealanders heart broken by the devastation in the North Island from Cyclone Gabrielle. We as a team and with the support from I Am Hope made the decision to swap our fundraising over to support the Red Cross Flood Relief efforts in the North. In our first weekend we raised over $2,332 and this weekend we have raised another $1,763 equaling $4,095 #forthenorth We are so grateful to the amazing people who support our ex-Cadbury team of legends and who shout so loudly for us. We as Cadbury’s staff are so proud to help New Zealanders and proud to be able to share our kind culture with everyone. I know our culture is not for everyone as there have been plenty of naysayers who criticise and oppose our fundraising efforts and who also oppose our efforts to grow and develop and heal as human beings within our Dunedin community. So you can understand why we are so proud of ourselves for continuing to push forward and help people with our heads held high. 

Our Flood Relief Fundraising will now move down to the Otago Polytechnic this week starting Monday 27th Feb and on our old Cadbury’s car park we will swap back to mental health supporting Life Matters Dunedin. All of our fundraising efforts for the flood relief are being added to the Givealittle page https://givealittle.co.nz/cause/cyclone-gabrielle-community-support and for our I Am Hope & Life Matters we have set up our own Givealittle pages links below

https://givealittle.co.nz/fundraiser/ex-cadburys-team-or-project-hope-and-beyond

https://givealittle.co.nz/fundraiser/ex-cadburys-team-or-project-hope-and-beyond-1

Thank you to the beautiful people who support and shout our team out. You are amazing and keep our positive and inspirational vibes flowing.  A massive thank you to our incredible team members from Cadburys, Fiona Dobber, Dave Bettis, Marty Hosking, and Peter Campbell.

Project Hope & Beyond Fundraising totals to date 4/03/2023 - 2.30pm

@iamhope_nz $18,251

@life_matters $14,694

@rmhnewzealand $2,482

@movember $918

@Redcross $4,218

Total: $40,563 = 312 counselling sessions over 104 New Zealanders helped. 

Bring on the $50 k !! M xx Chocolate Queen.