Volunteers for Hutt Community Secret Santa have 363 tamariki to provide gifts for. Photo: 123rf
A Wellington community is banding together to provide children in need with Christmas presents in a giant version of Secret Santa.
Volunteers for Hutt Community Secret Santa have 363 tamariki to provide gifts for, and so far they have matched all but 14 with their Secret Santa - a person providing the gift anonymously.
Organiser Amy Doughty said the Secret Santas receive the age, gender and hobbies of their matched child, and gifts are dropped off at collection points to be delivered.
The project started through a community Facebook page, Make a Difference Hutt Valley, in 2018.
"I got a handwritten letter from a six-year-old thanking me for giving presents to his siblings… and he called me Mrs Santa's helper. You do it for the kids."
Doughty took on managing the project as a volunteer the following year, and it had grown ever since.
She said one mother's experience had stuck with her for years, because her four-year-old thought it was his fault Santa had not come.
"She said, 'Santa didn't come because I couldn't afford to buy him anything', but he thought he'd been so naughty that he didn't get anything," Doughty said.
"She said, 'I failed, I failed as a mother,' and I was like, 'Oh my little heart'."
Doughty said there were 100 more children needing gifts this year compared to previous years, due to job losses and the cost of living hitting the community.
"The need this year is just so high," she said. "I genuinely think there are Santas that have helped me for the last four years that cannot help me this year because they've either lost their job or there's been a whole bunch of changes, and therefore they do not have the same level of security that they had in the past to be able to commit to buying presents."
Doughty said they aimed to help any children who needed a gift and relied on people's honesty.
"The benefit of this is it's still a grassroots [project], which I think is what makes it so accessible… there's less stigma around people not wanting to ask for help."
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