Trading corporate gifts for charity

Good Neighbours charitable trust trades a gift for a gift with Port of Tauranga chief executive Mark Cairns.

The eagerly-awaited Good Neighbours commercial kitchen has just received a boost in the right direction, after a generous donation by the Port of Tauranga.

A total of $4000 was received by the charitable trust, as part of what is now a Christmas tradition for the organisation.

Chief executive Mark Cairns says POT began making donations in lieu of customer gifts as a result of a fire at Silver Fern Farms in Te Aroha in 2010.

'In 2009, we realised a lot of money was being spent on corporate gifts around Christmas time and we wanted to find a way to spend that money better.

'The next year, we decided to give the total amount we were spending on client gifts to Silver Ferns Farms after their Te Aroha factory was involved in a fire.

'The response was awesome, so we continued on the tradition.”

The organisation now donates a total of $6000 to the local food bank with an extra $4000 being donated to a deserving local charity chosen from staff suggestions.

By unanimous vote, Good Neighbour Charitable trust was selected by staff as the recipient of this years' donation, says Mark.

'It's something that the entire organisation gets behind and it's really great everyone backs it so strongly,” he says. 'It's fantastic that we can help people out at such a stressful time of year.”

He says most corporate gifts aren't missed by the organisations' clients.

'We find our clients are actually a lot happier about these donations, in the fact this money is going towards something that benefits the community.”

The cheque was presented to Good Neighbour on Friday afternoon, where Mark was also involved in a tour of the site.

'It's always great seeing where the money goes, it's amazing seeing just how big the charity is,” he says.

Good Neighbours Charitable Trust general manager Campbell Hill says the donation will help towards the development of their commercial kitchen.

'We're always really grateful to Tauranga businesses and all of the donations we receive around Christmas, which all help us to kick start 2018.

'We are so thankful to have big businesses like Port of Tauranga recognising what we do and supporting us.

'It's really quite encouraging when people go above and beyond to help us out and it's not always monetary, some people will donate resources and whatever they have, which all helps us to reach out to the community.”

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