The Christmas spirit arrived early this year for Foodbank, with the Combined Lions of Kāpiti and Ōtaki collection being a huge success.
According to Foodbank’s, appeal coordinator Margaret Griffith this year has been even more successful than the previous 3 years and 420 banana boxes full of donated food are now in storage “We estimate the value of what we received at $53,600! This provides us with our major annual restock, vital for meeting the increased demand, especially over Christmas,” she said.
The Foodbank collection is a joint effort by the five Kāpiti and Ōtaki Lions clubs, and was coordinated by Sue Leen of Kapakapanui Lions. (Food collected in Ōtaki is all utilised there). She said Lions hand-delivered twenty thousand marked plastic bags over the previous week and collected them on Saturday morning.
Sue said Lions were thrilled at the public’s generosity. She attributed the success to a number of factors including the district-wide pre-collection distribution of the bags, with information on when the collection would take place and what type of supplies were best for the needy.
Foodbank’s Margaret Griffith was delighted with the volume of goods which she said will be greatly appreciated by those in need over the next few months. She was also grateful to Lions and to the team of volunteers from the church of the Latter Day Saints who helped at Foodbank with the lifting, sorting and packing.
“And most of all we are grateful for the community-wide generosity, especially those in the retirement villages who were particularly generous, which is especially gratifying coming from people, most of whom are on fixed incomes,” she said.
