A merry Christmas for more kids
In the spirit of the season a group of Taranaki school children have raised hundreds of dollars and bought presents to make Christmas a bit better for underprivileged young people.
Bell Block School’s student council, made up of 13 year eight students, held multiple sausage sizzles, a pet day and a grandparent day to raise $800, which has now been used to fill 20 shoe boxes with presents.
Student Council members Tessa Georgeson and Taryn Christiansen, both aged 12, were delighted with the support.
‘‘We’re really happy to have raised $800 and just blown away to have raised that much,’’ Christiansen said.
‘‘It’s really cool because these could be the only presents that these kids will get, so it’ll be cool to see when they wake up on Christmas day they’ll actually have something there to open for Christmas,’’ Georgeson said.
Both girls and the student council presented the gifts to Ria Julian from Tu Tama Wahine O Taranaki which delivers Ma¯ ori health and social services on Wednesday.
‘‘This is very emotional and heart warming that they have thought of these underprivileged children,’’ she said.
The gifts met a certain criteria and had to be something hygienic, something to love, something to read, something to play with and a treat to eat and are all personalised for each child’s age.
Georgeson and Christiansen said the idea for the project was thought up by principal Roz Miller and ‘just grew from there’.
The group have had three wrapping sessions to wrap all the presents up and teacher aide and student council facilitator Linda McBreen said the students spirits really rose with the project.
‘‘The children have bought and wrapped some amazing gifts and we are very proud of their contribution,’’ she said.
‘‘It’s nice to see the kids thinking of other children and helping kids who wouldn’t otherwise have a Christmas.’’