Salvation Army's Napier foodbank safe 'looking pretty low' as Christmas approaches

Major Stephen Wallis and Captain Sammy Millar inspect the unfilled shelves of the Napier Salvation Army's foodbank. Photo / Paul Taylor

Celebrating the festive season has become a deeply embedded tradition across the land, but there is an equally traditional element to it today which the Salvation Army picks up on every year.

The needs of less fortunate people across the communities, and those needs are often a struggle to meet.

At the Napier Salvation Army foodbank one of the front-line army crew, corps officer Sammy Millar, summed the current state of the shelves up.

"It's looking pretty low," she said, adding that they had experienced an increase in the numbers of people accessing the foodbank recently.

And while the supplies for the food parcels are low the accommodation demand is high.

"Our houses are all full at the moment," Millar said.

On that front, she said if anyone had a house they would like to rent to the Salvation Army they would be keen to hear about it.

Across Hawke's Bay last Christmas the Salvation Army provided accommodation for 34 individuals and families, and on the food assistance front put together 313 parcels for 266 individuals and families.

At this stage the numbers were looking around the same for this Christmas but Millar said there was always a rise as Christmas approached and it was starting to build again.

The Salvation Army's national director of community ministries, Jono Bell, said on the national scale they were looking to organise about 15,000 food parcels and gifts for people at Christmas, and that was on top of the regular services it provided to about 120,000 kiwis all year-round in the battle against poverty.

Between December 2018 and January 2019 the Salvation Army supported 2689 new clients across the country who had never accessed their services before.

They also saw a rise in demand for help beyond basic necessities, including a 30 per cent rise in the number of families working with a social worker and a 12 per cent increase in clients receiving counselling.

Bell said the public had always played a significant role is assisting the Army, and was hoping that would continue through the appeal they launched on November 18.

"You cannot help everyone, but everyone can help someone," he said.

"The reality is that The Salvation Army can't help these families without the support of the public."

Along with online donations, the Army is asking the public to pay their good fortune forward through its Gifts of Hope programme, which allows people to select from a range of gift packs to support families in need well past Christmas Day.

The Salvation Army's Christmas Appeal runs until December 20 and donations can be made online at salvationarmy.org.nz/christmasappeal.

Millar said Hawke's Bay people wanting to help on the parcels front could drop off items like canned food, pasta, rice, jams and spreads, toilet paper and toiletries at the Salvation Army centres in Napier, Hastings and Flaxmere.