Hajra Amir and her son Muhammad Ali Rehman, who faces open-heart surgery. Photo / Michael Craig
Kiwis are a kindly bunch - and it seems they'd do anything to make their families happy.
The Herald on Sunday teamed up with New World to celebrate World Happiness Day by offering readers $10,000 worth of prizes to help make them happy.
We were inundated with entries with an overwhelming theme - helping family and friends. Our winners asked for help to celebrate their sick son's first birthday, unite an elderly, sick woman in Australia with her family and do house repairs, to name a few.
Of course, there were also the fun requests.
Footy fan Thomas Harris from Tauranga won tickets to two upcoming Warriors games, while GP Joanna Lapish scored $500 for pasta-making classes and ingredients after a culinary disaster.
"My husband gave me a pasta-making machine for Christmas four years ago. I used it once, it was a disaster and I've felt guilty ever since for neglecting his present to me," Lapish told the Herald on Sunday.
The prize money was enough for her husband to book in to pasta school as well - the perfect date night.
For one family, winning $1000 put a big smile on their face.
When a pregnant Hajra Amir and her husband Zohaib Rehman moved to New Zealand from Pakistan a year ago, they received tragic news - their first child had a heart defect.
"It was a very big shock for us.
"All of our family is [in Pakistan] so we don't have anyone here for moral support. It was a very difficult time for us."
Muhammad Ali Rehman was born in October 2016 and at just 7 months old is set to undergo open-heart surgery - an approximately 10-hour procedure. After spending his life in and out of hospital, Muhammad's parents want to do something special for their son.
"I really wanted to do something for his first birthday but everything is really expensive. I wanted it to be really special so we have pictures we can show him when he grows up," said Amir.
Amir described winning the money as "a really big shock" and has been tossing up whether to spend it taking Muhammad on his first holiday in New Zealand or throwing a tea party to celebrate his birthday.
"We got all excited. We are so happy."
Winning $5000 also put a smile on Dianne Stitt's dial.
Stitt entered the competition after her elderly mother, who lives in Australia, had a fall which left her paralysed from the waist down and too frail to fly to visit her grandchildren and great-grandchildren in New Zealand.
"My mum adores her grandchildren and great-grandchildren," said Stitt.
"I have made photo books with heaps of gorgeous photos of her four great-grandchildren and taken them over to her. As sick as she is her eyes absolutely light up when she sees them but of course nothing could compare with seeing them in the flesh."
She will use the money for her family to visit her mum.
Aucklander Karen Williams also planned on using her $2000 winnings to make her elderly mother happy, by fixing her house.
"She never asks for help in anything but is always there for any of us. [Fixing her house] would make me happy," said Williams in her winning entry.
Avis Leeson, 87, won $1500 for her school garden project after sharing the joy that helping others brings her.
"It's the simple things in life that make me happy. At 87 I still get joy and happiness teaching school children how to grow fruit and vegetables for a healthy diet. To see the smile of happiness on their faces when those two first leaves appear makes me so happy," she said.