Insurance firm AMI has partnered with New Zealand Red Cross to put together winter warmer packages and keep New Zealand families out of the cold this winter.
Now in its third year, the 2019 winter warmers programme has seen New Plymouth Red Cross distribute winter warmers packs to 97 families across Taranaki. Each of the packs included essentials for the season like food, blankets, winter clothes, personal hygiene products, and sleeping bags.
The AMI team have been on the ground as volunteers for the past three years. Niki Smith, Cole Riddick, Toni Waru and Julie Willans from the New Plymouth branch said their experience in helping with the winter warmer packs has been eye opening.
“There was one in Bell Block that really got me,” Smith said. “Dad was outside on a chair, the young baby was inside on a mattress and he didn’t know how to respond to getting the pack. That was a hard one.”
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Meanwhile, Willans recalled two little girls on Cook St. that were so excited for new jammies that they were almost putting them on.
“Every product in this pack we take for granted,” Smith added. “I go home and my girls have no idea how lucky they are.”
The Winter Warmers initiative was also implemented across the Wairarapa, with 100 boxes filled of winter essentials distributed into Wairarapa homes, 54 of the packs donated to Whaiora and the rest to family violence services, IDEA Services, Age Concern, Safer Wairarapa, Te Awhina Cameron Community House, and Connecting Communities.
