Adopt a Family for Christmas ditched by Invercargill Salvation Army

Friday, 13 December 2019

Brenda King of the Invercargill Salvation Army says families in need this Christmas will not miss out, despite the Adopt a Family for Christmas scheme being ditched.

A popular scheme run by the Invercargill Salvation Army which pairs up donors with families in need each Christmas has been ditched.

The Adopt a Family for Christmas programme saw the Salvation Army match families or businesses in the community with struggling families so they could buy them a Christmas hamper and children's gifts.

It had run each festive season in Invercargill from 2012 till 2017 but was halted last year and has now been scrapped indefinitely.

Invercargill Salvation Army community ministries co-ordinator Brenda King said the number of 'adopted' families had escalated from about 70 in 2012 to 180 in 2017.

As a result, the large amount of paperwork, phone calls and co-ordination required by Army staff to successfully match sponsors with specific families had become too difficult to manage.

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However, those families in need this Christmas would not miss out, King said.

The Invercargill Salvation Army was continuing to accept children's gifts and food hampers from the community and it would pass them directly onto the families in need.

'The only thing that's changed is we have cut out the step of matching the sponsor with a family,' King said.

The new scheme was called Christmas Hope.

'So long as the public knows, we are still doing Christmas.'

King said Adopt a Family for Christmas had proved popular with the sponsors who had enjoyed buying individualised hampers and gifts for specific families.

'They put a lot of thought into the gifts. It was very popular and a beautiful thing to be able to do, but the numbers just got too large.'

A couple of sponsors had expressed disappointment but they had continued to donate, she said.

She understood some other Salvation Army sites around the country were also no longer doing Adopt a Family for Christmas, but others were.

King said the Invercargill Salvation Army tried to ensure different families received Christmas hampers each year, rather than the same ones always returning.

'We don't think that's helpful to the families long term, we work with them during the year to ensure they are planning ahead and budgeting.'