{"id":193869,"date":"2025-12-20T20:12:16","date_gmt":"2025-12-20T20:12:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/193869\/"},"modified":"2025-12-20T20:12:16","modified_gmt":"2025-12-20T20:12:16","slug":"what-it-costs-to-feed-600-financially-exhausted-guests-on-christmas-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/193869\/","title":{"rendered":"What it costs to feed 600 ‘financially exhausted’ guests on Christmas Day"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tara Moala, 43, is the general manager of food security at Auckland City Mission \u2013 Te T\u0101pui Atawhai. She says up to 600 people are expected to attend the inner-city site for some Christmas Day feasting. <\/p>\n

Kiwi families doing it tough this Christmas \u2013 Watch this story on TVNZ+<\/a>. <\/p>\n

In the meantime the City Mission was busy packing food parcels for families in need. 1News took a peek at the Wesley Community Centre as wh\u0101nau picked up kai and selected presents for their little ones ahead of the big day. <\/p>\n

On Christmas Day, we are expecting up to 600 people coming through to Haeata, at our inner city site, and we are expecting to be able to give them really amazing, beautiful food from early morning all the way through. <\/p>\n

\"Tara<\/p>\n

Tara Moala in action at the Wesley Community Centre. (Source: 1News)<\/p>\n

We have over 500 wh\u0101nau coming through this site over the four days that we’re running it, and what they’re getting is pantry staples. <\/p>\n

\"Leanne<\/p>\n

Leanne (left) and Alana from Auckland City Mission’s HR department were bringing the festive spirit. (Source: 1News)<\/p>\n

They get some vegetables, potatoes, onions and carrots and cabbages as well. They’re getting some fruit, such as strawberries, pineapples, apples, and when we can, we’ll also give bananas out. <\/p>\n

\"Some<\/p>\n

Some of the perishable items each family can choose to pick up. (Source: 1News)<\/p>\n

Our biggest thing that we actually provide is bread, so we give four loaves of bread to our wh\u0101nau. Every single wh\u0101nau gets that, so they can just pop it into their freezer and have it over the next few days. <\/p>\n

\"Bread<\/p>\n

Bread stacked up in pallets, ready for distribution at the Wesley Community Centre. (Source: 1News)<\/p>\n

We give out 30,000 presents for our wh\u0101nau, and that’s for each of the different tamariki, because we believe that all tamariki should be able to open up a present on Christmas Day. <\/p>\n

\"Families<\/p>\n

Families are able to select one large toy, one smaller toy per child, plus a book and a range of ‘stocking stuffers’. (Source: 1News)<\/p>\n

Those ones are actually all donated. We can’t put any kind of funding towards that, because all of our funding goes towards our food. <\/p>\n

\"Toy<\/p>\n

Toy bears donated by Whitcoulls this year. (Source: 1News)<\/p>\n

Our budget this year is $200,000 and that needs to be topped up with other fundraising and donations that we receive from our amazing Aucklanders that come through… We have multiple different organisations and businesses that donate. We have food businesses that help us out, and then we also do need to top up as well. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s $138 per food parcel, and that’s how much we need to be able to fundraise.<\/p>\n

\"Some<\/p>\n

Some of the items available in this year’s food parcel, before other selections are made by each family at the other stations. (Source: 1News)<\/p>\n

Haeata (the community dining room) is an amazing service, and we have some beautiful chefs there that can really make something out of nothing. So the general cost that we have is $64 for four plates, which is one table.<\/p>\n

We always get lots of canned goods, which is actually amazing. We have lots of baked beans come through, lots of those little cans of things that people can donate are actually really important, because it gives us the staples for those pantries. <\/p>\n

\"Some<\/p>\n

Some of the items available in this year’s food parcel, before other selections are made by each family at the other stations. (Source: 1News)<\/p>\n

That actually works for us at food security for our food parcels, as well as Haeata, because they always do a breakfast every single morning, 365 days a year. So yeah, baked beans are great. <\/p>\n

The need is high, the need hasn’t dropped at all. The cost of living has continued to rise, and that has flowed on to our wh\u0101nau. <\/p>\n

\"Presents<\/p>\n

Presents and kai donated to the Auckland City Mission. (Source: 1News)<\/p>\n

So the increase of their rent, the increase of their power, their water bills, all those different things add up. When they get to us, they\u2019re already financially exhausted and we just want to give them a bit of cheer. <\/p>\n

I just would love to give a shout out to every single person that helps us by donating, but also those businesses that make a commitment to give large amounts of food to us, and presents.<\/p>\n

\"Christmas<\/p>\n

Christmas trees donated to the Auckland City Mission. (Source: 1News)<\/p>\n

They have done such an amazing job for us to be able to commit to that and I just want to thank them. We wouldn’t be able to do it without them.<\/p>\n

Kiwi families doing it tough this Christmas \u2013 Watch this story on TVNZ+<\/a>. <\/p>\n

If you would like to partake in our Receipt Reveal series, please email receiptreveal@tvnz.co.nz. Please provide your phone number and tell us where in New Zealand you live.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tara Moala, 43, is the general manager of food security at Auckland City Mission \u2013 Te T\u0101pui Atawhai.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":193870,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[51,144,111,43,139,69],"class_list":{"0":"post-193869","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-auckland","9":"tag-food-drink","10":"tag-new-zealand","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-newzealand","13":"tag-nz"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193869","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=193869"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193869\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/193870"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=193869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=193869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=193869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}