Gay Sweeney spent a lifetime helping others find their voice. Now, the Nelson resident is using her own story to support people living with brain injuries long into the future.
Gay has chosen to leave a gift in her will to the Top of the South Community Foundation, with the funding earmarked for Brain Injury Top of the South and West Coast. She hopes her contribution will help fund an ongoing part-time support role for the West Coast and Buller, ensuring people living with brain injuries have someone local to turn to.
The gift is a response to a gap she has seen firsthand.
“I hope my gift helps negate that sense of hopelessness and isolation that people feel,” she says.
Gay's career began in broadcasting after growing up in New Plymouth. The daughter of two teachers, she worked in radio and television across New Zealand and spent time with the BBC in London before returning home to build a career in Nelson, Wellington and later public relations.
A serious brain injury changed the course of her life.
Gay has no memory of the accident itself and spent several days unconscious. Recovery was long and challenging, forcing her to rebuild her life in ways she never expected.
“Brain injury is often called the silent affliction,” she says. “People look at you and think you're fine, but they can't see what you're dealing with. People living with brain injuries have lost the life they knew. They have to invent a new one.”
Seeking a quieter place to recover, Gay moved to the West Coast, first living on a remote forest property and later in Ngakawau.
The move gave her space to heal and a community that helped her through some of the hardest years of her life.
“People have given so much to me,” she says. “I wouldn't have survived some of life's challenges without the kindness, generosity and belief of others.”
While living on the Coast, Gay also saw how limited support services could be for people living with brain injuries. Small support groups often met without anyone available to guide or coordinate them.
It was a need she never forgot.
Today, Gay serves on the board of the Brain Injury Trust, bringing the perspective of someone who understands the challenges of recovery firsthand.
Despite the difficulties of the past, Gay says life has remained full of small joys. Music continues to be important, and more recently she enjoyed a trip into Nelson with a friend from her apartment block to watch an Italian film about an orchestra of orphaned girls.
The ordinary moments matter, she says, because they represent a life rebuilt.
“It's not how you start off. It's all about how you finish.”
Now living back in Nelson, the city she first arrived in as a young broadcaster decades ago, Gay says making her bequest has brought peace of mind.
“I feel at peace now that I've done it, and I know it's going to be used.”
Gay says she feels reassured knowing her wishes are in place and her gift will continue supporting a cause close to her heart.
The Top of the South Community Foundation is encouraging others to consider leaving a gift in their will during September's Wills Month campaign. Gifts of any size can be invested to provide long-term funding support for causes across the Top of the South.
To find out more visit topsouthfoundation.org.nz/news/5433-wills-month-2026/
