Last week of Christmas Appeal, final push for Tauranga foodbank

Austin Manning, 9, from St Thomas More Catholic School in Mount Maunganui with some of his school's foodbank donations. Photo/Scott Yeoman

There is one week to go but so much more to do - something just about everyone can relate to in the hectic leadup to Christmas.

The pressure and stakes are especially high at the Tauranga Community Foodbank.

As donations continue to stream in, foodbank volunteers and staff are busy sorting, counting, storing and distributing food and grocery items.

There are hundreds of people to help feed this holiday season and the foodbank depot near Fraser Cove is a blur of people coming and going.

During a recent visit, the Bay of Plenty Times met 9-year-old Austin Manning and teacher aide Catherine Robson from St Thomas More Catholic School in Mount Maunganui.

The pair were dropping off the school's contribution to the foodbank.

The students of St Thomas More School took part in the Weet-Bix Kids Tryathlon this month and together won about $300 worth of Sanitarium products.

"They took a vote and the vote was unanimous - that we would support the foodbank and give this all to the foodbank," Robson said.

"Just because of the children - we wanted the children to have a good Christmas. It's children giving to children."

Austin said he thought it was a "pretty good" idea.

"Well it's just ... there's a lot of homeless people around and we want to give them some food so they have a fabulous Christmas," he said.

The generosity already shown by the people of Tauranga has been incredible - the Bay of Plenty Times Christmas Appeal is approaching $100,000 raised.

Each day there are several stories of charity and selflessness - not all are told and many fly under the radar.

On Friday morning, Desrae Beck and Matt Waide from product handling firm C3 dropped off six boxes of donations for the foodbank at the Bay of Plenty Times office on Cameron Rd in the city.

Other local businesses and individuals did the same last week and by Friday evening, the Christmas tree was surrounded by goods.

Desrae Beck and Matt Waide from C3 Limited dropped off the company's food and grocery donations for foodbank. Photo/Scott Yeoman

Meanwhile, Greerton Fire Service was part of the emergency services appeal and collected 2307 items for the foodbank.

"They were here first thing the next day and had the trailer load unloaded before we knew it," foodbank manager Nicki Goodwin said.

"Huge thanks to the people of Greerton for being so generous and Greerton Fire Service for working so hard to get it to us."

The foodbank relies a lot on the Christmas Appeal and Tauranga getting behind it.

Last year was the most successful appeal yet - about $130,500 was raised - and it only got the foodbank through to March. It used to last until May.

So while the amount of money and food raised so far is impressively generous, and while this week is possibly the busiest of the year, if you can dig a little deeper and donate a little more, Christmas and the start of 2018 will be a lot better for the people in our city who need the help.