Winter Warmth Project - Part 1

There is an increasing number of people in our community who are finding themselves homeless and/or sleeping rough this winter.

Some of our community leaders are regularly connecting with people in this situation, so we have been running an appeal to help them provide items that will help people stay warmer, as the cold weather sets in. We aimed to gather blankets, sleeping bags, winter jackets, tents and backpacks to give people some "Winter Warmth" which will be distributed by our team and volunteers in partnership with Shining Light Community Trust.

Through our Facebook page we invited our community to join us in this project by donating new or good-quality, clean used items:

• sleeping bags / blankets 

• winter jackets / scarves / beanies

We asked whanau to donate $$$ to help us buy tents and self-care items, or to drop items off to Len and Pris’ home.

Over 5,000 people viewed our Facebook post and we were blown away by how many people turned up to drop off donations - the garage was full! More than 25 sleeping bags, plus loads of other gear donated, and just over $1,800 raised!

A lovely lady named Kaye turned up with two giant bags full of brand-new hand-knitted beanies. She used to have a stall at Otara market - and she donated all her unsold merchandise to the project. (Beautiful!)

Another lady cooked up pots and pots of hearty soup, and one of our young leaders baked cookies packaged up beautifully.

It shows how much our community wants to help - people care!

The problem of homelessness can seem so complex that only a huge amount of resources can solve it. But just because we can’t solve everything doesn’t mean we can’t do something.

We got some advice from people with experience on the streets about the best use of the money we raised and decided to purchase pop-up tents and self-care items. We held a packing night to put everything together - each pack comes in a zip-up waterproof bag with a sleeping bag, towel, blanket, beanie and toiletries.

Now we are all ready to go…

Part Two - Distribution - coming soon!