{"id":142049,"date":"2025-11-19T00:22:15","date_gmt":"2025-11-19T00:22:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/142049\/"},"modified":"2025-11-19T00:22:15","modified_gmt":"2025-11-19T00:22:15","slug":"christmas-without-food-and-presents-more-families-struggling-expected-to-go-without","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/142049\/","title":{"rendered":"Christmas without food and presents? More families struggling, expected to go without"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cI only put it there so the kids see it\u2019s a Christmas tree because sometimes we have a present, sometimes don\u2019t have a present for the kids.\u201d<\/p>\n

Social services are warning this would be a tough Christmas for many families already struggling<\/a> to put food on the table.<\/p>\n

Variety\u2019s survey of households linked to the charity shows nine out of 10 would be unable to put on a Christmas spread and buy gifts for their children.<\/p>\n

Others, including the Salvation Army, warn demand for support is on track to outstrip last year as rising unemployment and the cost of living widen financial hardship.<\/p>\n

Fangupo\u2019s husband works, they live in a state house in Auckland and their three children are sponsored by Variety.<\/p>\n

She budgets $200 a week for groceries and, with budding sportsmen in the family, her kids fill up on noodles and bread.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn my plan for Christmas this year, whatever we have, that\u2019s our Christmas. We go to church then come home and if there\u2019s chicken and noodles we\u2019ll have that for Christmas.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fangupo said it is hard not to be able to buy her children presents but she is teaching her children to be humble.<\/p>\n

Variety\u2019s recent survey of caregivers receiving support or on the wait list found more than 89% of caregivers would struggle to feed their children at Christmas, while even more \u2013 92% \u2013 wouldn\u2019t be able to buy presents.<\/p>\n

Its chief executive Susan Glasgow said rising unemployment and the increased cost of food, power and rent<\/a> was creating further hardship.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s definitely harder for caregivers this year in comparison to last year and I think that\u2019s simply because the economic climate is so much worse. Power\u2019s more expensive, food\u2019s more expensive, rent\u2019s more expensive so where caregivers are making really tough choices, food or rent, they\u2019re choosing to keep a roof over their child\u2019s head.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"VarietyVariety chief executive Susan Glasgow is concerned families are facing more hardship this Christmas. Photo \/ RNZ, Marika Khabazi<\/p>\n

Variety aims to raise $500,000 in its Christmas appeal to be able to give children on the waitlist for sponsorship a gift voucher.<\/p>\n

\u201cChildren who are living in households where they experience daily poverty, they know not to ask their parents for the things they need,\u201d Glasgow said.<\/p>\n

\u201cMore often than not, what we receive are letters from older siblings asking for a gift on behalf of their younger sibling. The older ones can deal with their lack of toys or lack of food but they know that the younger ones don\u2019t often know why they\u2019re not receiving something from Father Christmas.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said for many struggling families, Christmas became a time of dread and humiliation.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you can\u2019t afford to give your kids a lovely Christmas Day meal or a gift, then this time of year can be unbearable for parents.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s also the pressure of providing enough food for their kids during the school holidays, when their appetites are strong and they\u2019re always hungry. Nearly all our caregivers say they won\u2019t be able to feed their kids adequately because of cost, which should be of great concern to New Zealanders.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"YoungerYounger children don’t always understand why they’re not receiving gifts from Santa. Photo \/ RNZ, Marika Khabazi<\/p>\n

The Salvation Army provided Christmas support <\/a>to 3700 households last November and December.<\/p>\n

Its corps officer in Newtown, Andrew Wilson, said just a few weeks into this month they had almost reached that number, helping 3400 households, with no sign that demand would slow down.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re expecting that this Christmas we\u2019re going to be needing to support more families than we did last year.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur big concern this year is that the level of demand that we\u2019re seeing outpaces that which we can meet under our own steam so we really rely on the support and generosity of our communities right across the country to support us at this time of year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wilson said households needed basics and their foodbanks had been under pressure all year.<\/p>\n

\u201cQuite often at the end of the week you\u2019ll go into our food banks and see shelf after shelf bare because of how great the need has been and so especially coming into the Christmas time where that demand increases for a range of reasons, this is the time of year that we really rely on our community to get behind us.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Salvation Army has launched its Christmas appeal and also welcomed donated gifts and food at its churches.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know it\u2019s been a hard year. We\u2019ve been fighting for support, whether it\u2019s homelessness or the rising cost of living, so we know Kiwis across the country are doing it really tough.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cI only put it there so the kids see it\u2019s a Christmas tree because sometimes we have a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":142050,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[95,18399,5346,5988,564,29419,130,111,43,139,69,11663,666,61,13971,1339],"class_list":["post-142049","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-and","tag-christmas","tag-expected","tag-families","tag-food","tag-go","tag-more","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-presents","tag-struggling","tag-to","tag-williams","tag-without"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142049","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=142049"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142049\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/142050"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=142049"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=142049"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=142049"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}