Tauranga Community Foodbank staff and volunteers, pictured last Christmas. Photo / file
They say you can judge a community by how it treats its most vulnerable.
So what better way to showcase Tauranga's sense of community than this year's Bay of Plenty Times Christmas Appeal?
Today, we launch our annual six-week appeal to collect as much food and money as we can
for the Tauranga Community Foodbank. The foodbank is made up of incredible human beings volunteering their time for others less fortunate.
As a reporter, I have been involved with this annual appeal for several years now. Some of you will have opened your doors to me during our can drives through the city's suburbs.
Others will have told me about their fantastic fundraising efforts for the cause which then formed part of our stories.
Today, and over the next six weeks, my colleagues and I will bring you reasons of why we are doing it all over again.
