Wills Month: The Shaw Family Legacy That Continues to Give
September is Wills Month — a time not just to update your Will, but to consider how your lifetime of values can flourish long after you’re gone.
That ethos is embodied in the story of the Shaw family. From humble beginnings, with Jack Shaw leaving school at age thirteen to learn to read before buying a truck, the family’s journey culminated in a legacy transforming lives across the Western Bay. Their story is proof that generosity, rooted in purpose, can grow in unexpected and impactful ways.
This Wills Month, the Shaw family’s legacy invites us to reflect: a single act, planned well, can ripple into a lasting foundation for our community.
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The Shaw Family Legacy
When Jack Shaw left Mangakino High School at 14, he could barely read — but opportunity was already calling. He taught himself while juggling part-time jobs: a milk run, a bread run, night shifts as a “pin” boy on the log skids at Maeratai Mill, and other mill work.
By 19, Jack had purchased a Ford V8 truck and secured a Ministry of Works contract at Mangakino, transporting labourers to and from the Whakamaru dam construction site each day. Every morning, he removed the truck canopy to work the vehicle carting concrete and supplies. Each evening, he scrubbed the deck clean, replaced the canopy, and carried the men home.
Weekends were no quieter. Jack drove the same truck across the North Island, moving households to their new beginnings, while his wife balanced the ledger faithfully from the passenger seat.
That hard-working routine — mahi at the forefront, whānau close behind, and community wherever help was needed, eventually brought the Shaws to Tauranga in the early 1960s. Jack bought a modest freight firm and built a depot on Courtney Road, offering general freight storage as well as sand and metal supplies to the public. He also repurposed retired buses, giving them new life ferrying Kaimai tunnel crews to site.
Later, Jack purchased land in Tauriko for its pumice resource, which supplied fill for Tauranga’s construction works and created steady work for his truck fleet. He contoured part of the land into a kiwifruit orchard, used another section for a commercial worm farm, and ultimately developed the site into Tauriko’s first industrial warehouses. The excavated pumice pit was later transformed into a cleanfill landfill. Whenever equipment or land sat idle, Jack found a way to put it to work.
While Jack led the operation, Aileen’s counsel was always close at hand. Even after being diagnosed with breast cancer at forty-five, after an 18-year remission, she passed away at 66. Her experience guided jack’s support for Waipuna Hospice, and when Jack survived seven heart stents, he added the Heart Foundation to their list of causes.
Life on the harbour meant regular donations to Coastguard Tauranga and the Philips Search & Rescue Helicopter Trust. They never chased headlines, as Jack cared for results, not applause, so most gestures were known only to those they helped.
Stories of Jack’s quiet help still circulate around the Bay. Neighbours recall trucks arriving unannounced to clear storm-damaged trees and several tonnes of playground sand delivered free to local schools. In December 2023, the Shaw whānau turned their generosity into a named endowment fund with the Acorn Foundation. Rather than write a single cheque, they chose to gift their capital in perpetuity and fund local charities with between 3.5% - 5% of its value every year, forever.
The Shaw Family Endowment now channels steady support to four frontline charities that Jack valued deeply. At sea, Coastguard Tauranga’s 60-plus volunteers remain on call around the clock, saving lives and keeping their new rescue vessel ready for action. In the air, the Philips Search & Rescue Helicopter launches from Tauranga to reach accident sites and rural patients in minutes. On the ground, Waipuna Hospice walks alongside patients and families facing life-limiting illness, offering specialist care and support at no cost. And across the Western Bay, St John Tauranga & Mount Maunganui delivers urgent ambulance care day and night, thanks to the commitment of their paid officers and volunteers.
Steady, long-term backing from the Shaw Family Endowment will keep rescue boats patrolling, helicopters primed for lift-off, and hospice nurses at patients’ bedsides. Jack passed away in 2020. His imprint still threads through the Western Bay. Through the Shaw Family Endowment, that philosophy will keep working, and caring for our community, long after the last Shaw truck is parked for good.
Interested to create your own legacy?
This September, during Wills Month, you have a rare and meaningful opportunity: through a simple addition to your will, naming the Acorn Foundation as a beneficiary, you can create a legacy as powerful as the Shaw family’s. Your gift, however modest, will be invested to benefit the causes close to your heart, every year, forever.
Our 15 partner law firms across the Western Bay of Plenty are standing by to help. Many are offering free or discounted will services during Wills Month when the Acorn clause is included, making this an ideal time to act.