She said they are asking for donations of bags of lollies and sweets, chocolate, Christmas crackers, tinned fruit, cake mix boxes, bags of chips, onion soup mixes, cans of reduced cream, bags of nuts, non-alcoholic bubbly drinks, Christmas paper plates and cups, tins of beetroot, and packets of fancy coffee sachets.
In total, they need 100 of each of those items, she said.
Monetary donations are also helpful to enable the team to buy perishable items such as cream, nearer the time.
Moleta said a nomination system will be used to identify families in need, with details on how to nominate families coming out nearer Christmas.
Families will then be invited to collect their hampers from the Hope Hub on Kent Street in time for Christmas, to ensure their pantry is full and ready for a Christmas celebration, she said.
“We want to take the pressure off at Christmas and make people’s Christmas a little bit brighter.”
It’s not just Christmastime when Hope Hub helps fill pantries across Levin, with the organisation operating a free store weekly on Wednesdays, where they give out food they’ve collected to the over 100 people who turn up each week to get a grocery boost.
People take a ticket and wait in the cafe until they are called to pick up their items, she said.
Those groceries are donated by local businesses as well as members of the public, who often donate excess fruit or vegetables from their own gardens, she said.
“Businesses that have excess food donate it – it might be mislabelled, it might have a different ingredient or just be a cancelled export order or something,” said Moleta.
