Make a child smile this year

Daniel Petersen from Tauranga City Library and Brenda Anderson with some of the donated gifts intended to make a child smile. Photo/supplied

There will be about 1000 more smiles inTauranga when Santa comes this year.

Make a Child Smile campaign is in its fourth year where the community are asked to donate presents for local children whose families may not have much, to help make Christmas special and happy.

The campaign is the brainchild of Brenda Anderson from Mount Maunganui Lions and has been a huge success with approximately 1000 gifts donated each year. In conjunction with Tauranga city libraries, they are hoping for even more presents this year.

The idea is to take unwrapped presents to drop-off points (any of the city libraries) up until December 18.

Brenda — and hopefully a few volunteers — collectthe gifts and take them to the Salvation Army and Arataki Community Centre to disperse to the community.

"Balancing life can be quite overwhelming," Brenda says. "We are hoping that this campaign will help to alleviate some of the pressure."

Trustpower Tauranga make a huge effort collecting gifts. Last year they gathered about 300.

"Trust Power have taken the excitement of gift-giving to another level as they hope to excessively increase their gift donations from last year's campaign," Brenda says.

They need volunteers for picking up of presents. If you can help contact via goldentokens@gmail.com.

"There's a magic about Christmas and we believe that the community contributes to that."