Biggest Christmas delivery ever for Wellington City Mission

Wellington City Mission delievered 250 hampers in the region on Christmas Eve. Photo / Supplied

Wellington City Mission has done its biggest delivery to date on Christmas Eve, delivering around 250 hampers to individuals and families in the region.

The organisation had seen demand for food and support skyrocket during Covid-19, but had also seen a surge in generosity.

Wellington City Missioner Murray Edridge said this year's hamper delivery was 150 per cent more than previous years, which was driven by two things.

"The first is increased demand for the food and the support we need to get to people, and the second is the increase in the generosity of people.

Wellington City mission delivering hampers on Christmas Eve. Photo / Supplied

"We were anxious about what the support levels would look like because everybody struggled this year.

"But the support we've had from corporates and organisations, from individuals, from families, has just been humbling and amazing.

"What we're seeing particularly at this Christmas time is the kindness and generosity and compassion of everybody becoming really evident."

As well as the food and gift donations, the charity had received 1000 volunteer hours in December.

The demand for services increased by 400 per cent during Covid-19 alert levels 3 and 4, with many people requesting help who had never come to the City Mission before.

The struggles were not only financial, but families and individuals under increased stress due to isolation and anxiety as a result of the pandemic.

Edridge said the demand reduced after lockdown and eventually settled at a level about 25 to 30 per cent up on the pre-Covid normal.

But Edridge said they were expecting demand to get worse once again.

"We believe we're going to see some economic effects come to the people that use our services that we haven't seen the effect of yet," he said.

"Coming into next year we think we're going to see another peak in our demand. We don't know what that will look like, but we're busy gearing up so we've got the resources to respond to that."

Wellington City Mission said people had been more generous than ever in 2020. Photo / Supplied

City Mission would not be doing its traditional Christmas Day lunch, as Edridge said it did not feel "entirely appropriate" during Covid, with so many people around the world unable to gather.

They would instead be supporting a number of smaller gatherings with food and volunteers.

"What Christmas also does is accentuates the differences, it stigmatises and for people that have done it hard this year, Christmas is going to be even harder."

He said it felt like a "huge privilege" to be able to support people in Wellington to have a more normal Christmas this year.