Rotorua, your generosity has broken records.
This year’s Fill the Bus campaign raised the equivalent of $26,000 to help families enjoy Christmas with “full tummies and full hearts”.
It’s the second year in a row that a record has been set for the event.
And those involved have highlighted the generosity of the Rotorua families who dipped into their cupboards for donations despite many “doing it tough” themselves.
The Hits Rotorua 97.5FM’s Fill the Bus campaign is part of the six-week Rotorua Daily Post Christmas Appeal that aims to help stock the Salvation Army Rotorua foodbank’s shelves through the holidays and into 2024.
Each December for the past eight years, a CityRide bus has driven around Rotorua calling on businesses, schools and the public and collecting donated food items for the foodbank.
On Wednesday the bus filled up so fast it had to be unloaded a few times through the day, with donations going straight to the Salvation Army office for counting.
At 4.30pm, before the final busload of donations arrived, Salvation Army volunteers and staff had counted 7151 donated items.
By just after 7pm the total number of items had jumped to 10,699. Assigning a value of $2.50 per item makes the haul valued at $26,882.
The tally sets a new record for the campaign.
Last year, Fill the Bus collected 10,041 items, or more than $25,000 worth. This contributed to a total of $76,500 worth of donations raised in the 2022 Christmas appeal, at a time when soaring costs of living forced some people out of their homes and pushed others to their financial limits.
