Haven of hope

When Julie Chapman discovered students were going to school hungry, she decided to do something about it. Now she is also helping people and pets trapped by family violence.

- SHARON STEPHENSON

There are certain stories Julie Chapman dips into whenever she needs reassurance that she’s doing the right thing. Many of them — you have been warned — are truly shocking. Like the one about the bloke who was so angry – at himself, his partner and a world that didn’t seem to have room for him – that he rounded up the family’s pets and, in front of his children, slit the animals’ throats.

Or the man who brought a puppy to his partner’s house, and told his partner’s child they’d have a mock court to see if the puppy could stay. The verdict, predictably, was “no”, so he took the puppy outside and shot it.

“I know the stories are awful,” says the 49-year-old, on the phone from her rural home north of Auckland. “But they serve to illustrate the overlap between family abuse and pet abuse.”

You may recognise Chapman’s name from KidsCan, the not-for-profit she started in 2005 from her garage, after a teacher friend mentioned that students were regularly coming to school hungry. That organisation now provides food, clothing and health support to thousands of children in more than 850 schools and 150 early childhood centres around New Zealand.

Chapman is still the chief executive, heading up a team of 40 national staff. With recessions, inflation and the cost-of-living crisis ratcheting up demand for KidsCan’s services, she hasn’t exactly been twiddling her thumbs.