?

Community Health and Social Services >

Support Crew

Community Health Service, Cancer Network Group

Description

Support Crew is a free online help roster that helps those dealing with life changing events like cancer to easily co-ordinate the meals and support they need from their support network, plus keep everyone up-to-date in one place.

Why use Support Crew?

When dealing with a something big, you often need help with meals, transport, cleaning or child care from those around you.  It’s likely that many of the people in your support network are asking ‘what can we do to help’ or ‘let us know what we can do to help’.

It’s not always easy to know what to say and we struggle to ask for help because it can make us feel like we are a burden to others. You also might be too overwhelmed to know what help you need, and not likely to go back and ask for it later.

So we've created Support Crew so you've got an easy way to ask for the meals and help you really need whilst providing a super easy way for your support network to give.  So you can focus on the things that really matter, and your Support Crew can know exactly how they can help.

How does it work?

  1. Create a private Support Page (for yourself or ask someone else to create one for you)
  2. Invite your Support Crew (family, friends, colleagues, neighbours etc) to connect on your Support Page
  3. Ask for help and your Support Crew can accept requests so you get the help you need
  4. Share updates and receive messages of support
  5. Receive help through our Give Store where your Support Crew can organise meals, cleaning vouchers, fuel vouchers etc for you.

Who can I invite to Support Crew?

Don't forget that with Support Crew, you can invite friends and family no matter where in the world they are.  With our Support Crew Give Store, they can give you a hand with meals, cleaning and transport no matter where in the world they live.  Cool heh?!  

Plus, by having everyone on your Support Page, it'll be the one place you can keep everyone updated with how you're doing.

Staff

One of the inspirations for starting Support Crew came after Co-founder Kelly Banks' then partner Randal was diagnosed with stage 4 bowel cancer in 2015.  During that time, Kelly and Randal had many friends and family saying "let me know what I can do to help’' and they were too overwhelmed to know what help they needed, and didn’t know how to go back and ask for help later. 

Each time they went through chemo, radiation or one of his five surgeries, they could see that not being able to ask for what they really needed left their friends and family not knowing how to help, and not being able to connect with their journey as fully as they wanted to.

Co-founders Kelly and Janine started to notice other friends and family members facing the same situation - in dire need of support, with offers of help flooding in, but finding it difficult to accept and co-ordinate these offers.  So, in true kiwi ingenuity style, they decided to create Support Crew to make it easy for people to give and get a hand when dealing with something big.

How do I access this service?

Contact us

Anyone can set up a private Support Page for either themselves or someone else. It's fast and free!

Start here

Services Provided

Family / whānau support
Cancer support

Patient transport

  • Patient transport

Contact Details

If you need a hand getting started with a Support Page, or have any questions, please just get in touch:

Kelly Banks - Co-founder

Janine Williams - Co-founder 

This page was last updated at 12:32PM on June 18, 2024. This information is reviewed and edited by Support Crew.