Christmas appeal: More than 1000 food items a day for Tauranga Foodbank

Rotary Club of Tauranga Te Papa president Evan Turbott, foodbank manager Nicki Goodwin and Uli Hoppe, director of community service, making a donation. Photo/Andrew Warner

Tauranga Community Foodbank hasbeen averaging 1200 donated food items a day in the lead up to Christmas.

One of the groups contributing was the Rotary Club of Tauranga Te Papa which recently popped into the foodbank headquarters to drop off 200 tins of canned food including, beans, corn and fruit.

Out of 53 members, this year's haul was a good one, club director of community service Uli Hoppe said.

"We do it every year. We just feel that the foodbank needs our support and it's a worthy cause," he said.

Club president Evan Turbott said the Rotary Club helped out other local charities throughout the year including Women's Refuge and the three local surf life saving clubs.

"We try to concentrate on local charities."

Foodbank manager Nicki Goodwin said the Rotary Club of Tauranga Te Papa had been a consistent supporter of the foodbank and the canned donations to the Christmas Appeal was just another side of their support.

She said the foodbank was on track to meet last year's amount of donated food items.

"It's really cool, even after a major disaster in Kaikoura people are donating. I was worried it might impact our donations but it seems people have just dug deeper to help with both," Ms Goodwin said.

Standing in the midst of thousands of food items still to be sorted and put into food parcels, Ms Goodwin said they had received plenty of "dream items".

"We were running really low on canned soup, pasta sauce and baking supplies but they have come flooding in."

Appeal totals

The Christmas Appeal has so far raised $84,499 for the Tauranga Community Foodbank, made of both cash donations and food items.