Last week we received a considerable koha from a local family who wanted to help us help those who were not going to have a Christmas tree or presents to place beneath it.
They had read about the growing gap of poverty in Tauranga and decided to put their money into the mouths of families who needed to know someone out there cares.
Suddenly we got to play Santa with a wish list of where the tree would be placed and what kind of presents would be appropriate.
Kai vouchers from Pak'nSave were a priority as were book and board games where whanau could actively engage in doing stuff together.
Never underestimate the map of the human heart when it comes to giving, is something I have had tattooed on my in-house tikanga (personal philosophies) these last few weeks when trying to come to terms with poverty in this town that has plenty.
Not to dwell on a similar subject in consecutive columns, this one has had more feedback and feed the kids solutions than any other I have encountered.
People out there genuinely care and the hard questions of how this has happened are now being asked honestly.
It's easy to feel sorry for the poor and it is easy to support a cause to carry the can on feeding the kids, or donate one to the local food bank, as many of us do.
We give a little to feed a few and walk away believing the Beehive is not doing enough and the well heeled are not giving enough. Meanwhile the problem perpetuates and the little girl waits.
When I ask my mates and colleagues the question about the inequality in our community and who is to blame, it is usually the well heeled or the "haves" who get to carry the can.
Vouchers for Pak 'n Save are popular in the lead up to Christmas.
Why? Because it must be their fault "cos they got heaps" is the common catchcry I hear in my day-to-day dealings with the "system" and the fallout of families who cannot climb out of the poverty pit they live in.
But is it? I am asking more and more.
Is the panacea to the pit of poverty the well meaning and well heeled?
There is a silent partner in this poverty pit that I am seeing as the inconvenient truth that no-one within the walls of the taxpayers' trough wants to face.
The accountability and effectiveness of many government contracts to prevent poverty could well be the elephants in the room, eating the kai that should be going to our kids.
In Aotearoa-New Zealand, spending on social welfare and assistance, including health and education, is 74 per cent of central government spending.
This represents 23 per cent of GDP. In real per capita terms, it was up by the order of 160 per cent between fiscal years ended 1978 and 2014 based on Treasury's long-term fiscal series.
William Voegeli, a senior editor at Claremont Review of Books, recently gave a speech, "The case against liberal compassion", at Michigan's Hillsdale College that raised the question of why many (US) liberals appear to feel that no matter how much governments are spending to alleviate and prevent poverty, the latest amount is always shamefully inadequate.
Wiremu put US federal spending on welfare, including health and education, in 2013 at two-thirds of all federal outlays and 14 per cent of GDP. In real per capita terms it was 254 per cent higher in 2013 than in 1977, yet there was no corresponding dramatic reduction in poverty.
Voegeli observes that those who care the most about alleviating poverty should be the most passionate about opposing wasteful government spending.
After all, every taxpayer dollar squandered in some way is a dollar that could have been used to help the poor. Yet, much welfare spending is "showered on people who aren't poor" and many government spending programmes are not reviewed systematically, rigorously and regularly in value-for-money terms.
Voegeli puzzles over why US liberals are not leading the charge against waste in government, as I do here in Aotearoa.
Perhaps the best place to start is with our Maori Iwi Forum made up of 75 iwi leaders, who will be meeting in Tauranga next week for the first time.
Ineffectual remedies represent a failure to help the object of one's self-professed compassion. Compassion such as the kindness of the koha by Santa Carrus, without efficiency, puts compassion in question.
