Rain no drain on Daffodil Day in Tararua

Kendra Wilton sits holding the two teddies she bought from Kathryn Frankis and Dinny Davidson at the Woodville Daffodil Day stall both for her three-year old nieces.

Human sun in the form of warm smiles outshone the wet drizzly day Mother Nature provided on Daffodil Day in Tararua on Friday.

Comfortably ensconced under shop shelters in reasonably mild but wet conditions close to 100 volunteers in the four main centres sold daffodils – both real and artificial - pens, teddy bears and their own town raffles to a very willing public from 9am until the customers dwindled about 4pm.

Some retailers responded by decorating their shops while the colourful daffodils did their own publicity.

Five Dannevirke stalls did solid trade, the stall at Dannevirke Four Square doing a roaring trade early as pupils from Huia Range and Busy Bees all came to buy "Something yellow for school dress-up."

Volunteers in Eketāhuna: Mayor Tracey Collis, Maureen Te Wake and Heather Mayer.

While most stalls wound up by 4pm as the weather turned particularly nasty, the stall inside Dannevirke New World was still busy at 4.30pm and members of the Men's Cancer Support group manned it again on Saturday

There were not many daffodils left by the end of the day, teddy bears being in demand especially when customers realised they were a collector's item now no more will be made.

Glenys Pride said the two stalls at Woodville have done well and the money raised will match previous years. She said despite people struggling to cope with inflation they still found money for Daffodil Day. "The Cancer Society is an easy charity to work for," she said.

Out in the country, Ruahine and District School had its annual dress-up fundraiser.

In Eketāhuna, co-ordinator Maureen Te Wake has been collecting for the Cancer Society for Daffodil Day for 35 years. She was assisted by a team of volunteers. Mayor Tracey Collis has been vo0lunteering for 10 years. "The nice thing is that the local community collected daffodils from their gardens to bring down," she said.

Heather Mayer has been volunteering for "many" years and said everyone wants to give for Daffodil Day. Janice Percy did the knitting for the Teddy Bears.

Pahiatua saw a good turnout of volunteers, co-ordinated by Lyn Chrystal and plenty of support was shown by the community.