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The Auckland City Mission is preparing to deliver tens of thousands of gifts and food packages to those in need before Christmas.
Ready-to-go food packages at Papakura Marae.
Photo: RNZ / Sarah Robson
Instead of the usual lines outside of the mission’s CBD headquarters, Christmas gift boxes are being delivered from distribution centers across the city.
City missionary Chris Farrelly said change was about giving people their dignity.
“Think of five years ago, the queues on Hobson Street where we provided the same kind of service every year, but people would come out at midnight, waiting under the gaze of the public with children and the elderly, to receive a gift and run,” he said.
It comes ready to use.
Photo: RNZ / Sarah Robson
“Yes, we gave something, but it was at great cost, at the expense of dignity.”
This year, people are asked to call 0800, where their needs will be assessed. They will then be asked to go to one of the distribution centers and at a specific time to pick up their packages.
One such center is in Papakura Marae, where CEO Tony Kake said the demand for food and gifts was huge.
Tony Kake, CEO of Papakura Marae.
Photo: RNZ / Sarah Robson
His team of staff and volunteers were working hard to make sure the whānau got what they needed, he said.
“The process we have this year has to do with the mana, the improvement of the mana, the dignity of our whānau.”
New system much better
At the marae, cars line the street outside.
People who have signed up to receive packages are greeted by someone who puts a number on their windshield, which matches the number on their packages.
They drive to the parking lot, where volunteers take the packages out of grocery carts and place them on the back seat or in the trunk of the car.
One woman who used the service, Edge, went with her son and three nieces.
“We won’t have to worry about having more food at Christmas and [the kids] will be fed, “he said.
In previous years, Edge had lined up outside of City Mission.
“There would be a group of us, three or four of us would go out, we would sacrifice a night to sleep there, just to stand in line to receive the gifts, the food.”
The new system was much better, Edge said.
“We had to come at a certain time, and it’s just around the corner, we don’t have to go all the way [the city], stay there for the night and then once we’ve got the stuff, walk to where we park. “
Food packages are being prepared.
Photo: RNZ / Sarah Robson
The Auckland City Mission expects to deliver around 40,000 gifts and 10,000 family meal packages in the run-up to Christmas.
Farrelly said she reached the end of a busy year due to Covid-19.
During the closures, the demand for food packages tripled.
The mission was still running about twice the demand it would normally have at this time of year, and many of those who needed help had never ordered a food package before, Farrelly said.
The mission did not have the capacity or capacity to meet all the needs that existed, he said.
However, he was working with other organizations to make sure that people did not go hungry during the Christmas period.
