Subj : 'Everybody' is invited to community event for Efeso Collins
To   : All
From : News Person
Date : Sat Feb 24 2024 01:40 pm

By 1News Reporters
Friday 6:42pm

A family spokesperson for Fa'anana Efeso Collins has shared details about the
public celebration to be held following the Green MP's sudden death on
Wednesday.

Collins, 49, died after collapsing at a charity event raising money for safe
drinking water for children in the Pacific on Wednesday morning.

His family released a statement this morning expressing their gratitude to
the public for their outpouring of love and support, and now have invited
"everybody" to join in celebrating Collins' life with a public event next
week.

"To reflect that [public support] and to honour his memory we will be hosting
a public celebration of his life at Due Drop in Manukau next week Thursday at
noon. That will start at 12pm and is an open invitation for people and
communities to come and share in remembrance," said family spokesperson for
Fa'anana Efeso Collins, Taito Eddie Tuiavii.

Tuiavii told 1News that Efeso Collins was lying in state at the Tipene
Funeral home in Auckland's Onehunga while immediate family were given the
opportunity to visit and grieve.

"He was the glue of the family, he was the anchor. [They are a] very
tight-knit family and now he's no more.

"It's incredibly devastating and we're really, really feeling it at this
time," he said..

Tuiavii said tributes have "poured and flooded in" on social media and
elsewhere as many people mourned the loss and celebrated the "larger than
life personality that he was".

Tuiavii said the family were "quite overwhelmed and also pleasantly
surprised" at the sheer number of lives that Collins touched and had an
impact on - inviting smaller communities to hold "more intimate" moments at
the Tipene funeral home before the wider public celebration.

Giving thanks to the Tipene Funeral home directors, he said "this is
essentially going to be the marae".

"I think it's quite fitting. It allows the family and immediate family to be
intimate, but it also allows the community to come through in whatever
numbers, and pay their respects.

"Efeso will be here and will lie in state here until Thursday, which is the
public memorial."

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