Christmas Appeal: Tauranga Te Papa Rotary Club helps raise thousands for the foodbank

Tauranga Te Papa Rotary Club members Barry Benton (left) and Neil Percival. Photo / Supplied

One club, 14 volunteers, 32 hours and a generous community has raised $7700 for the Tauranga Community Foodbank.

Tauranga Te Papa Rotary Club volunteers worked over two weekends for their Cash or Cans Appeal; one was at Countdown Bureta, and the other at Countdown Fraser Cove.

Over four days of eight-hour campaigns, volunteers took turns doing two-hour stints.

This healthy injection into the foodbank comes with just two days to go for the Bay of Plenty Times Christmas Appeal, in partnership with Gilmours Wholesale Food and Beverage Tauriko.

The six-week appeal has seen $90,143 in cash donations alongside 28,374 items donated as of yesterday morning from the generous community.

This generosity was seen in Rotary's drive, club convenor Neil Percival said.

They had been blown away by an "exceptionally good" appeal this Christmas, far outstripping what was raised last Christmas.

Around $3800 of the donations were cash donations and the rest came from food which the club valued at $2.50 an item.

Percival said they undervalued the items and the quality was high - not the basic baked beans or canned spaghetti.

"The results were outstanding."

The club usually held two appeals for the Tauranga Community Foodbank a year, and had done so for the last four years.

They were unable to do their mid-year collection due to Covid-19.

Percival had previously been a foodbank board member for several years and said he knew how the money and food was in good hands, going to the places they needed to go.

The food has already been taken to the foodbank and the cash will be given at the beginning of next year.