Christmas Appeal: Salvation Army wellbeing leader Sally Wilson says cost-of-living ‘struggle is real’

As the Christmas season approaches and cost of living continue to rise, working families are struggling to “make ends meet” says one Rotorua Salvation Army foodbank employee.

The Rotorua Daily Post six-week Christmas Appeal, in conjunction with The Hits Rotorua 97.5FM, collects food and money for the Rotorua Salvation Army Foodbank.

Rotorua Salvation Army social services wellbeing team leader Sally Wilson said families were finding the cost of living increasingly hard.

“The struggle is real,” Wilson said.

“It’s not easy to walk through the doors and ask for help.”

“We see it because we see the tears. We see people break down.”

Wilson began volunteering for the foodbank in February. Five weeks later she was offered full-time employment in the wellbeing team.

Her reason for wanting to work at the foodbank was “my love for helping people and my whānau”.

“We do a lot of work with our clients that come through our door that need support.”

She said it may be food, housing or mental health support. Clients were referred to social worker specialists such as professional financial mentoring if needed.

Wilson said the wellbeing team had a “catch-up”-style interview with clients to better understand “what’s going on in their lives”.

After a personal meeting, the organisation helped people put a plan into place.

“There’s a lot of things that we can sort of tap into to give our clients support, not just food,” Wilson said.

“Sometimes we find that there’s a lot of things underlying.”

Wilson said there was a range of clients the organisations saw and it was “not just clients that live in poverty or are homeless”.

“We’ve seen whānau that are working families ... the struggle is real out there.”

Salvation Army social services wellbeing team leader Sally Wilson says the organisation can help with more than just food parcels. Photo / Andrew Warner

Wilson said “people are living week to week” and often incomes of working families were not enough to “make ends meet”.

“People are left with only a few dollars left in their hands. So they come for a top-up to get food.”

She said many clients “apologised” when visiting the organisation.

“We say, ‘You don’t have to apologise’. We don’t turn people away here at the Salvation Army.”

Wilson said more expensive items such as cleaning items and personal sanitary items needed to be donated.

“Those are probably the things that we could do with because they have a higher cost ... laundry powder and shampoos, personal hygiene [products],” she said.

“That would bless us.”

According to Statistics New Zealand, the cost of living for the average household rose 7.4 per cent in the year to the end of September.

An increase in interest payments of 27.3 per cent was the biggest contributor, followed by rises in the cost of grocery food (11 per cent), rent (5 per cent), insurance (12.9 per cent) and property rates or related services (9.6 per cent).

Stats NZ’s most up-to-date Consumers Price Index showed that in addition to grocery food, the prices of meat, fish and poultry had risen 8 per cent since the previous year.

Rotorua Salvation Army foodbank corps officer Hana Seddon previously said the organisation had always been “an important part of a community response to the needs out there”.

“But what I’ve noticed is that over this last year, it’s become even more important for families that may have never actually approached anybody looking for help or support.”

Sometimes they included working people and homeowners.

Seddon said the Christmas appeal is a special opportunity for the whole community to show their support for each other.

“When somebody reaches out for help for the first time or even the 100th time and their community says, ‘Yes, we’re there for you’, how amazing is that?”

The appeal runs until December 23, to help the Salvation Army continue its work through the Christmas period and into 2024.

Michaela Pointon is an NZME reporter based in the Bay of Plenty and was formerly a feature writer.