By Tania Phillips
Growing up on farms, Warwick Churches of Christ Aged Care chaplain Donna Craig always loved animals and now with her faithful companion Stella the Corgi she is bringing a little love, understanding and sunshine into the lives of older people.
Donna had also always seen the ministry and helping people as her calling.
“When I was a young girl in New Zealand, about six or seven, a minister visited our little Sunday School, I sat back in my Sunday school shed and I thought I want to be that person one day,” she said of her inspiration to become a pastor. However, it wasn’t any easy road.
“It was a dream back then, I’m dyslexic so as I grew older and as an adult, I thought I could never do it.” But over ten years, with many helpers, she started to type and learn and by then living in Australia, was able to earn her diploma in ministry.
“My senior pastor at that time in NSW said I think we should make you a pastor and I was like – that’s been my dream,” she said proudly.
Donna has now been a minister for 20 years and had been volunteering helping people for even longer.
But when the family sold their sheep farm, she realised she needed a paying job.
“I had to seek out more work, so I started as a chaplain in NSW (in aged care) and I was there for 10 years, I love people and I thought these guys need to know about god and they need to be loved and they need to have a purpose and a plan even though they think it’s all over and they are in aged care,” Donna said.
“My heart was to give them purpose again.”
With a daughter living in Qld, the family thought it was time to move north.
“I rang a friend and asked are there any jobs going in Qld and she said there’s one at Warwick,” Donna said.
“I’d never been here, I accepted the job because it was during Covid, with an interview online. We moved up here and I started around four years ago.
“I now have 15 volunteers that have come into the facility, and they also visit residents along with myself, it’s bringing the community into our community, so they don’t feel isolated.”
And that community includes animals.
“I had a love of animals as a child, we grew up with dachshunds, I grew up on a dairy farm, my husband and I owned multiple dairy farms,” she said.
“My husband had a love for Corgis. We moved from New Zealand to Australia and stayed with this couple who unbelievably had Corgis and they were breeding them.”
They bought one and then a second one and started breeding them, then Stella came about – a cute little corgi with a love for people. Originally Donna’s daughter adopted the dog, but Stella became her companion when her daughter left for Norway.
“I thought what this amazing dog is doing at home and so my boss in NSW said, why don’t you bring her in?” Donna said.
“So, we started training her. She was trained as a puppy in obedience school but she’s just unique, the stories I could tell about Stella are incredible.
“She has been coming in (to see Aged Care residents) for about six now and she just knows and is amazing. Just recently there was a man in palliative care, and I brought her in when I went to see him, he hadn’t really been responding. I brought Stella into the room; his wife was happy to see us, and we said a little prayer. I said to her would you mind if I put Stella up on his bed. He actually opened his eyes, he smiled, and he put his hand out to her like he knew and shortly after that he passed away.
“God, Stella and I work as team.”
As well as visits from Stella, Donna said they had also had horse interaction at Warwick.
“I moved to Warwick thinking, Stella’s not going to do any good because they’re all horsey people, so I got in contact with a horse company and we’ve had horse interaction over the past two years off and on (due to covid and rain),” Donna said.
“Three weeks ago, we organized a horse and cart ride for one of the ladies turning 104.”
