Hello World bringing Christmas cheer to Whanganui

The Hello World Wanganui team - Leanne Comrie, Tina Law and Jane Hickey - is putting up a Christmas tree for Women's Refuge. Photo / Paul Brooks

The travel agents' team at Hello World – Leanne Comrie, Tina Law and Jane Hickey – know that Christmas is not going to be the same for all of us.

Christmas is not created equal, so they would like you to help them bring a little Christmas cheer to some people who are having a hard time.

In the store is a Christmas tree and they're asking you to put a present under it.

Hello World Wanganui has partnered with Women's Refuge Whanganui and the team wants to load them up with presents to pass on to families in need this year.

Tina is a Crisis Line volunteer for Women's Refuge so the idea of donating presents to the charity is a good fit.

"Hannah in our Blenheim team and Lindsay in our Rolleston store came up with this idea," says Leanne, and the team in Whanganui is only too pleased to set up a tree in their Trafalgar Square store.

All they want is for people to give an appropriate present and, if it's wrapped, something to indicate whether it's for a boy or girl or unisex, with some idea of what age it would be suitable for. Hello World will provide stickers for that purpose.

"We'll have our Christmas tree up in the store by December 1, and we encourage people to come in and donate a gift … and we will deliver them to Women's Refuge on Friday, December 18," says Tina.

The Hello World team is looking at making this an annual thing.

Store opening hours for drop-off under the Christmas Donation Tree are 10am to 4am, Monday to Friday, and 10am to 2pm on Saturdays.