Philanthropist Sally Morrison on her life’s missions
You’ve gotta give it to lifelong philanthropist Sally Morrison – she’s one very special woman.
WORDS MONIQUE BALVERT- O’CONNOR PHOTOS JAHL MARSHALL
It’s been 18 years since you first wrote about me,” says Sally Morrison. “Frog Cottage,” she prompts, and I’m transported back to the character green- and-white home she owned on Tauranga’s Devonport Road.
Actually, there have been several stories over the years highlighting her gardening prowess, beautifully bedecked homes and more. I may be slightly vague on the details, but I forgive myself, and for a good reason that has nothing to do with the passing of time. Quite simply, such memories are superseded by my recall of Sally’s philanthropy. What I remember with great clarity is Sally’s volunteer work at a Vietnamese leper colony.
We settle down to chat in Sally’s Mt Maunganui apartment, where she tells me that the leper colony chapter of her life started back in the 1990s. A fellow Tauranga Sunrise Rotary Club founding member spoke to her about his auntie, a Catholic nun, and her work in Vietnam. Sister Sheila O’Toole went to Saigon during the Vietnam War, was held hostage in a prisoner-of-war camp, and was one of the last people to depart from the US embassy in 1975. She returned to Vietnam in 1992, spent another 12 years there and is the most decorated New Zealander in relation to Vietnam.
Enthralled, Sally filed away the Sr Sheila information, vowing to one day hunt her down. That day came later that year, after Sally’s daughter Trinity celebrated her 21st birthday.
“I thought Trinity had had a reasonably good life and I wanted to show her how other people lived,” says Sally. “I took her to India for a month and on the way back we called in to Vietnam to see if I could meet Sister Sheila O’Toole.”
Sally’s life path changed when “a lady, just about in rags” pulled up on a motorbike to meet this inquisitive fellow Kiwi. “She sat down and told us about her service at a leper colony. She’s the most amazing, bravest woman I’ve ever met.
“We sat there in the middle of nowhere in a street that was like another planet – so much poverty – and we were spellbound. She took us later to Ben San [Leprosy Centre], which was then run by nuns. It took about three-quarters of a day to get there from Ho Chi Minh. It’s walled, barbed-wired, and there were guards. I thought, ‘This challenge is a bit of me’ and that’s how it started.”
Sally went back to her Sunrise Rotary Club armed with the news that there was a lot of good they could do there, and got the desired support. An initial step was acquiring a licence so she could teach the nurses at the centre (none of whom were registered) how to look after leprosy patients. This was in the late 1990s and over the next 14 years, Sally visited voluntarily seven times for two-week stints of teaching and nursing. Nurses from other hospitals attended her lessons and she thinks she trained about 50 staff over the years. Sally left them her training manuals so they, in turn, could help others.
“It was very hands-on,” says Sally. “I’d help deal with the head lice, which were crawling; I’d massage lotion into the skin of those with scabies [previously they’d been scrubbed with pot mitts]; I’d go in at night and sit with the dying; and the nuns would teach me Vietnamese and I’d teach them English.
“The people there had so little. I used to take nail polish over and they treated it like absolute gold. They’d line up so I could paint one or two fingernails (that’s all they had) and they – women and men – loved it. The nails on every finger they had left would be painted a different colour.”
While there, Sally stayed at the colony in a bedroom where netting was a blessing as the spiders were “as big as dinner plates”. Initially, there was no hot running water, but Sunrise Rotary changed that by putting in solar heating. They also sent a container full of goodies including spare beds from the hospital she owned, Oakland Health. She also brought furniture, linen, games, felt pens and colouring books for the children at the school within the colony. Both contributions were life-altering.
Then there was the goodness that came from Comvita; namely, $149,000 worth of wound-care product. The healing effect that had on the leprosy patients blew Sally’s mind.
Sally’s missions to Vietnam continued until 2007. That same year she sold Oakland Health, having bought it 27 years earlier. Back then, it provided for 19 medical patients, mostly aged-care and a medical patients, mostly aged-care and a few young, severely disabled people. Under Sally’s watch, it grew to support more such patients, plus others with traumatic brain injuries, young patients, post-operative orthopaedic care and war veterans from Wellington, and offered aggressive and slow-stream rehabilitation and physiotherapy services, palliative care and a meals-on-wheels service. Apartments and a hydropool for rehab were added, which saw it catering for 102 people in-house and about 140 outpatients.
They were busy days, but there was always time for doing charitable good. Sally held governance positions at organisations such as Private Hospital Association and the Acorn Foundation. She helped start Tauranga’s first Lioness Club, the Tauranga Festival, and her precious Tauranga Sunrise Rotary Club, and judged competitions involving enterprising young people. The Queen’s people took note. “I got a gong,” smiles this New Zealand Order of Merit recipient.
Sally can’t park philanthropy. These days, she and some other women are part of a giving circle with the Acorn Foundation. “We put money in the can every month, then give it out,” she says, citing Women’s Refuge and disadvantaged children among the recipients.
She remains “neurotic” about New Zealand’s health system. It just doesn’t provide well enough for the many needs out there, she says.
Amid time with friends and family (her grandchildren live nearby) and beach walks with her two dogs, Sally is writing a book to inspire people to act on their dreams. “It’s not a look-at-me story,” she says. “It’s about how even if you come from nothing – I came from a state house – you can achieve whatever you like, with effort. My advice is to always surround yourself with a good team of supportive people. I couldn’t have done anything by myself – I owe whatever I’ve done to a team of people.
“Read about people with grunt, be a bit mouthy like me, and stick up for yourself and your basic principles,” is her advice.
Sally concedes she’s done good in her time but quickly adds that she doesn’t need awards, flowers, a red carpet or stories written about her. “If I get a smile, I’m as happy as a pig in mud.”