Te Puke Toy Library ready for The Great Gatsby Casino night - Hayley Vickers (left), Melanie Costar with Bodie Allard, and Ann Treadgold.
Te Puke Toy Library is roaring into its second quarter-century with a 1920s-themed fundraising night.
The toy library is celebrating its 25th birthday, and a casino night on August 26 will bring the Roaring 20s to life.
Te Puke Citizens RSA will be transformed into a speakeasy for the Gatsby silver jubilee casino night.
Since the onset of Covid 19, the toy library has been unable to hold its main fundraising event.
President Claire McCracken says a Gatsby-themed night is always fun and the toy library has a history of well-attended, fun casino nights.
Treasurer-secretary Ann Treadgold says the committee thought it would be a fun theme.
“The 1920s is always a popular era — and we’ve added a silver theme to it too,” she says.
Ōtūmoetai Lions will provide the casino tables and croupiers.
“People will get fake money at the door and if they want to buy more money, they can,” says Ann.
There will be prizes for less-traditional successes, including the person with the least amount of money remaining and the person who has bought the most.
“There will be all kinds of random prizes and spot prizes.”
Claire says more than $10,000 of prizes have been donated, some of which will go into silent auctions, including 1.2 tonnes of agricultural salt blocks from Dominion Salt and a $5000 credit with Robertson Bathware.
“Thanks to a lot of other local businesses, we’ve got lots of prizes,” says Ann.
Other major sponsors are Kiwi Pollen, Visionlab and Dobson’s Electrical.
The pandemic hit the toy library hard, and a major fundraiser has not been held since 2019.
“We’ve had a lot of difficult years and there were a lot of things that happened,” says Ann.
“Basically, we just kept going as best we could with some grants and cutting back hours.”
Claire says when it was finally possible to reopen the toy library for playgroups, “it was amazing, just having the kids back in here”.
“We really weren’t able to do anything like that with the restrictions that were running.”
A stringent cleaning regime is still in place.
The toy library was set up by a group of mums determined to plug some of the gaps in family needs in the community.
It was first established after a public meeting in May 1998. The idea was to give families an opportunity to provide educational toys for their children.
It began in one of the first committee members’ spare room and has had various locations before settling at its building in Stock Rd.
Tickets are $35 each and are available from the toy library, via its Facebook page or by calling 027 263 9309.
Opening hours are Friday and Saturday, 10am-1pm.
The popular display will be auctioned as a Mount Surf Club fundraiser.