While the disastrous fire at Takaka ITM in January was a shocking blow to the local community, the aftermath was even more unbelievable. In an overwhelming show of support, the whole town gathered around, pitched in, and got the business up and running again in just five days.
"They were awesome, we were totally blown away," says store manager Luke Brown. "It was just unreal the offers of help we had. One day, there were over 30 people on site cleaning up and moving stuff. "We had people from the Golden Bay Football Club, offers of help from our competitors. I especially remember five-year-old twins from our kids' holiday building programme bringing us chocolate brownies. We do a lot of community support, and it has come back to us tenfold."
Bouncing back
The fire in the early hours of the morning on Jan 11th totally gutted the 700m2 store. Fortunately, the Takaka ITM site has a large separate joinery shop that wasn't affected, thanks to "the fantastic effort of the Takaka Volunteer Fire Brigade."Three of our staff are members of the brigade, so they were familiar with the site layout and were able to coordinate things to protect the joinery shop, thank goodness."Over the next few days, everyone pitched in to clear the space, and we created a make-shift pop-up store. With help from ITM stores in Motueka and Nelson, we were able to get our trucks running between all three stores so we could deliver our customers' orders."
Luke says the rebuild is expected to be completed in 12-18 months, but in the meantime, it's business as usual. "It was rough for the first week, but everything's going smoothly now, and we're back up to about 90% of what we were. By coordinating with the Nelson and Motueka stores, we can provide pretty much the full ITM services we had before the fire."It's incredible how a small community like ours can come together when things get tough. The support we got was staggering, and all our staff are incredibly grateful."
Incredible support from the ITM network and suppliers
"The outpouring of support received from within our Co-operative underscores the power of solidarity in times of adversity. Together, we're stronger, ready to rebuild and move forward", remarked Sara Johnson, ITM CEO.
Thom Sullivan, General Manager of Procurement, also praised the support Takaka ITM received from suppliers, "At ITM, suppliers are part of our community, and the support provided to the Takaka team has been truly appreciated. Many have gone above and beyond to expedite a return to trading."