Local roofing companies have banded together to replace most of SPCA Auckland’s large, leaky roof for free.

The old roof reached a critical stage of leakiness earlier this year but SPCA Auckland lacked the funds to replace it, according to Christine Kalin, SPCA Auckland CEO.

“We’ve been wanting to replace it for quite some time but we’re a charity and all our money is directed towards saving and finding homes for lost, abandoned, and abused animals,” says Ms Kalin.

“Our funding activities raise only so much and we receive no guaranteed government funding. So the question remained: how could we get our roof fixed before it became an OSH issue?”

The answer came in the form of a low-cost direct marketing campaign, the brainchild of indie advertising company Shirtcliffe & Co.

“We got old bits of rusty roofing iron and printed the words ‘It’s raining on our cats and dogs’ on them,” says Executive Creative Director Matt Shirtcliffe. “Then we couriered them to a small number of specialist roofing companies and followed up with phone calls from the CEO of SPCA Auckland.

“The results were absolutely brilliant – before long we had a group of companies putting their hands up to donate labour and materials, spearheaded by Brendan McLoughlin of ACR Reroofing.”

Mr McLoughlin is an animal lover himself who has adopted several dogs from SPCA Auckland – so he was happy to donate about $12,000 worth of free labour and materials.

“When we received the piece of roofing tin with the holes in it saying the cats and dogs were getting wet we were keen to get involved,” says Mr McLoughlin. “So we had a word with some other companies and they came to the party with materials.”

Steel & Tube Roofing manufactured all the roofing sheets free of charge using Coloursteel donated by NZ Steel, while Hylton Parker Fasteners provided all the fastenings, and Tasman Insulation donated the insulation.

“Delightfully surprised” is how Ms Kalin describes her reaction to the news that SPCA Auckland’s leaky roof would be replaced completely free of charge.

“It’s a dream come true for us and we really can’t thank all these wonderful companies enough,” she says.

“We work at the coalface of animal welfare every day and we often see the worst of human behaviour. This extremely generous gift really does restore our faith in the essential goodness of people and gives us renewed hope to carry on with our mission.”
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