A bit of history…
In 2013 Breakfast Club put on a Christmas Banquet at Glen Innes School and invited 250 family members from some of the highest needs families living in Glen Innes, Glen Taylor and St Pius Schools. It was a wonderful event delivered in the spirit of Christmas, and the following year it grew to serving 600 families! In 2015 we decided we wanted to do much more for these very high needs families, and so we created our first Christmas Store. The first year saw 150 families benefit from the gifts of food and children’s presents, as well as enjoying a wonderful afternoon of fun. Remember that when living on very low incomes, these families don’t get much of a celebration at Christmas as they’re usually in survival mode year round. The children rarely go on holiday or receive any gifts other than necessities. The Christmas store is designed to give each family a significant amount of food to relieve the financial pressure around the holiday period, Christmas gifts for each of their children, and some time to get together and have some fun with other families in the lead up to Christmas. The Christmas Store has continued to grow and last year we had 175 families attending, including 700 children enjoying the event. But each year we want to do more!
In 2018…
Our stretch target for 2018 is to invite 200 families which will mean around 1,000 children are invited. Our date is the 22nd of December – which is the last Saturday before Christmas. So that’s over 1,000 people from struggling families receiving enough food to really relax and enjoy their Christmas. Thanks to our wonderful sponsors we’ll be able to give each family approximately $600 worth of grocery products to take home, and we’ll provide entertainment for the kids with our outside play area complete with all the stuff kids like for free, like Mr Whippy, sweets, popcorn, hot dogs, bouncy castles, games, and drinks. This year we will host families from:
- Glen Innes, Glen Taylor, St Pius and Tamaki Schools in the Glen Innes area;
- Te Kohanga School in Port Waikato (a new school we have taken under our wing in 2018)
- Vaka Tautua who work with Pacific families with disability and mental illness
- Tamaki Family Health Surgery in Panmure
Please read the 2018-xmas-flyer and see if this event is something you would like to be part of supporting financially. The budget for this event in 2018 will be approximately $20,000.00. If you can donate we ask you to please contact Steve on email at steve@breakfastclub.org.nz or visit the ‘contact us’ page on this web site or on mobile 021 906 734. We’re really looking forward to Christmas !
