Michelle Ramage, the chairperson of the Roderique Hope Trust was a guest speaker at the Diocesan Conference of the Palmerston North CWL held in New Plymouth. She was awarded the ‘Taranaki Person of the Year’ in 2018.  Michelle is also an ex-pupil of Sacred Heart Girl’s School in New Plymouth and is employed as a whanau support worker with Tu Tama a Wahine o Taranaki.  In this role she and her colleagues had to put mothers and children in unsuitable accommodation or even turn people away which was distressing.  With Paul and Joy Russell,  the Roderique Hope Trust was born.

The Roderique HopeTrust is a Charitable Trust in the Taranaki region which was formed to assist the growing number of homeless in Taranaki, especially families with children, who do not meet the criteria of other local emergency housing services.  At this time the Trust has bought, refurbished and have available three houses but it will not stop there.  https://www.roderiquehopetrust.co.nz