Legacy of support for Wellington children and families to continue through Wellington Children’s Foundation Fund.

In 1985, a ‘for sale’ sign was pitched outside Citizen’s Day Nursery on Wellington’s Vivian Street. Although the sale of the building signaled the end of an era for social services in our city, it also prompted the start of a new, important chapter; the Wellington Children’s Foundation.  

Established in 1921 after the First World War, Citizen’s Day Nursery was the brainchild of Lady Mayoress, Lady Jacobina Luke. At a time where very little state assistance was provided to widowed, unmarried or working women, the Nursery offered a “friendly hand and proffered practical help to working wives.”   

Described as a ‘fine institution’ in a 1924 Evening Post article, attendance quickly grew to almost 9,000 children per year. “The hot dinner for the little ones was a great feature, and was very much valued by the mothers,” secretary, Mrs. R. Kennedy reported back at the Nursery’s 1924 annual meeting.  

Girls with dolls, at Citizen's Day Nursery, Wellington. Evening post (Newspaper. 1865-2002) :Photographic negatives and prints of the Evening Post newspaper. Ref: EP/1958/2753-F. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand

A new chapter of generosity  

As society progressed, more women entered the workforce and the tarnish of being an unmarried mother dulled, the Nursery slowly shed its association with poverty and charity. By the 1980s, childcare was a widely available public service, rendering the Nursery’s charitable services less viable. 

This social environment, paired with the deterioration of the Vivian Street building, which, now over 100-years old, no longer met Social Welfare’s licensing requirements, provided an opportunity to reimagine the future of the Nursery and think of new ways of maintaining its charitable intent while delivering support in a more relevant, contemporary way.  

“In the end, on the best advice possible, we put the property up for sale, and from the proceeds, once we had met ongoing commitments, we set up our Foundation with the aim of continuing to help, albeit in a different form, needy children,” say the Wellington Children’s Foundation records.

With a goal to support the interests and welfare of children and their families as the Nursery had for over 60-years, this new chapter was characterised by fresh agility, and an ability to move with the times and provide support in a more robust, flexible way.  

Since 1986, the Foundation has provided support to a wide range of for-purpose organisations, from grants provided to Birthright Aotearoa to nurture families in the Hutt Valley, to Ted’s Space to deliver animal therapy to students and the Nest Collective to provide baby essentials to families in need.  

“The Wellington Children’s Foundation has had the pleasure of supporting so many organisations over almost 40-years,” says Judith. “It’s been heartening to take up the baton of early innovators like Lady Luke, and offer support in a way that is responsive to the world we now live in.” 

About the Wellington Children’s Foundation Fund 

In early 2024, after many years of volunteer service, the Wellington Children Foundation trustees were becoming ready to hang up their hats. Succession planning became an important agenda item at every meeting, with all trustees hoping to find the next guardian of Lady Luke’s legacy.  

“We wanted to avoid winding down the Foundation,” says Judith. “Like we had in 1985, we wanted to think of a new way to carry on our story.” 

The Wellington Children’s Foundation Fund was established with Nikau Foundation in 2024. As the Foundation did and as the Citizen’s Day Nursery did before, the fund will continue to support the welfare and interests of children and their families for generations to come.  

“We are so delighted to be the guardian of this next chapter of support for our region’s tamariki and their whānau,” says Nikau Foundation Executive Director, Emma Lewis. “To be able to carry on the work of an organisation with such a long and impressive history of community care is an honour.”