Once again I have been amazed by the kindness of our readers to those in need or less fortunate than themselves.
Hawke's Bay Today is currently running a campaign called Bring yer Boots, encouraging people to bring in their old sports boots and donate them to children and young people who need them.
We have bins in our offices from Napier to Dannevirke, including our head office in Hastings, and once we have collected a large number of boots we will begin distributing them to clubs.
It is quite amazing to see the boots roll in. Our front counter staff say a lot of people bringing them in do so without a fuss and simply want to help others.
My favourite story of the lot, as told to me by our staff at the front counter in Hastings, is of a man who popped in to ask if we were still collecting boots. When told yes, he said he would be back. Sure enough 10 minutes later he was back with two pairs of $100 boots he had just purchased at the Rebel Sports across the road in Heretaunga St East. Unfortunately he did not leave his name, but I would love to know who he was so that I could put his photo in the newspaper. A truly remarkable act of kindness.
I would also like to thank Ihaia West, the first five-eighth for the Magpies, who gave up some time last Friday to come to our offices and hand over the first pair of boots. He was very nice and we are grateful to him for getting the ball rolling.
We hope to make this an annual appeal, but at this stage I am happy to report that we have quite a number of boots.
But we don't want to stop so if you have any boots laying around please drop them off at any one of our offices in Napier, Hastings, Waipukarau or Dannevirke.The addresses are 301 Heretaunga St East, Hastings; 42 Tennyson St, Napier; 16 Gordon St, Dannevirke and 29 Ruataniwha St, Waipukarau.