Salvation Army premises<\/a> in Greenmeadows, and found a home at Park Island with the facilities made available free of charge, joining a list of sponsors and supporters including the Napier City Council and Pak\u2018nSave Tamatea.<\/p>\n![\"Almost]()
Almost 150 guests were at the Napier Community Christmas, for which there were about 45 volunteers preparing the meal, serving, and transporting and welcoming. Photo \/ Doug Laing<\/p>\n
About 45 volunteers were involved, some for two days as the meal and the premises were prepared to cater for about 16 tables of needy, a mixture of homeless, families unable to afford a costly Christmas and those who would otherwise be spending Christmas alone.<\/p>\n
The jobs also included greeting driving to collect people without transport or deliver meals to people unable to leave their homes, including at least one trip to Hastings.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve just delivered six meals,\u201d said volunteer Elly.<\/p>\n
![\"Annual]()
Annual volunteer Berry Rangi (right) as the last meals of the day are served to new Napier Community Christmas organisers Debbie Morley (left) and Donell Hole. Photo \/ Doug Laing.<\/p>\n
One who was there to help was Anaru Randell, who had during the year graduated from being a foundation resident at new Napier homeless night shelter Te Ahuru Mowai to getting a job and \u201cget me a house\u201d, after several months living in his car.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m here for Jim and Joanne,\u201d he said. \u201cThey\u2019ve been my support. I needed a kick up the bum, and they gave it to me.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"New]()
New Napier Mayor Richard McGrath tells the Napier Community Christmas guests of his hopes for the council and the city in the new year. Photo \/ Doug Laing.<\/p>\n
Addressing the guests, Jim Gaudin said: \u201cWe know that things are tough, and we wish that every day could be like today.\u201d<\/p>\n
Acknowledging those from the homeless shelter, he said: \u201cEvery one of them comes with a story. If you come across them on the street, take the time to talk with them, find out why they are on the street.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The couple started helping in the kitchen predecessors when the event was held at All Saints Church, and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":206525,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[806,3043,18399,1259,8414,380,2946,8231,37235,305,5838,25630,15220,80098,130,3607,35479,111,43,139,69,90,31425,13737,131,684,2044,61,810,50961],"class_list":["post-206524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-as","tag-call","tag-christmas","tag-community","tag-couple","tag-decade","tag-dinner","tag-event","tag-farewelled","tag-have","tag-help","tag-hosts","tag-line","tag-loads","tag-more","tag-napier","tag-napiers","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-on","tag-organised","tag-spirit","tag-than","tag-there","tag-time","tag-to","tag-up","tag-volunteers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206524","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=206524"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206524\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/206525"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=206524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=206524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=206524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}