Rotorua's Ruth Burrows has been busy sorting food for the Salvation Army's Christmas hampers, which will be given out to 120 struggling families later this week.
The 64-year-old, who is The Daily Post Local Hero this week, has donated thousands of hours to the Salvation Army over the past 10years or so and her main motivation is that she likes helping people.
She used to work at the Salvation Army's Community Ministries for three years distributing food parcels.
Two years ago she started working on a voluntary basis for the Salvation Army Family Store. She volunteers six hours each day, five days a week in the store.
Mrs Burrows said she was brought up in a Christian home, where she was taught about the importance of helping people.
Last week and this week she is spending three hours a day gathering food for the Christmas hampers.
She is among eight people volunteering their time to fill the hampers and yesterday Mrs Burrows was in a hall full of boxes of food, which she said would not have happened without people helping.
"If it wasn't for the people of Rotorua giving to us we wouldn't be able to give out to the people who need it, so a big thank you to the people of Rotorua."
