Hungry and homeless families set to benefit from mid-winter charity fundraising

The dire plight of Auckland’s homeless and hungry families has again spurred one of Auckland’s leading restaurant and bar groups to throw its charity fundraising support behind the Auckland City Mission’s winter food appeal.

Six restaurants and bars across Auckland have joined forces to hold a month-long multi-pronged fundraising initiative. Each of the venues is running a variety of initiatives with the dual aims of making $6000 for the Auckland City Mission, and raising public awareness of the charity’s work feeding hungry families and helping house the homeless across the city.

Among the initiatives taking place at De Fontein in Mission Bay, De Post in Mt Eden, The Ponsonby in Ponsonby, and The Occidental in the central city, Malt Bar in West Lynn and The Paddington in Parnell, will be:
• $1 gold coin donations encouraged from patrons paying for every meal sold at all six of the venues throughout the month of July
• Setting up ‘drop-off’ points within the hospitality venues where diners and members of the public can bring in cans and packets of non-perishable food products which will be used to stock up the City Mission’s food banks and drop-in kitchens
• Contributing an additional five percent of the value of all meals sold throughout the week of July 4 – July 10
and
• Installing donation boxes on every bar so that members of the public can make additional donations to the charity.
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It is the second year the bar and restaurant operating Frenzi Group has held the mid-winter fundraising activities on behalf of Auckland City Mission. Last year the concerted fundraising efforts from four of the six bars generated a $5000 donation – along with umpteen boxes of tinned and packet foods – ranging from fruit and vegetables, through to soups and dried pasta.

Belgian Beer Café charity coordinator and manager of the De Fontein Belgian Beer Café in Mission Bay, Aaron Pearce, said the hospitality group had once again chosen to support Auckland City Mission because of the outstanding work the organisation did, caring for many of the city’s less fortunate.

“The response we received from customers when we first ran this campaign last year totally justified our decision to support an organisation which may not be as glamorous or high profile because of the nature of its work,” Mr Pearce said. “Auckland City Mission has a long and appreciated history in this city.

“However, the number people seeking assistance from the Auckland City Mission continues to rise while basic donations– both with food parcels and cash - has fallen substantially over the past few years because of the recession, and people struggling to make ends-meet in their own personal lives, let alone helping others. This year, the direness of that situation has been compounded with millions of charity dollars flowing down to Christchurch following the earthquake.

“Taking all this into account, running themed-winter fundraising campaign was one of the easiest decisions we’ve had to make all year,” Mr Pearce said.

Auckland City Missioner Diane Robertson said the charity was incredibly grateful to the six venues and their expected thousands of customers for their combined support and donations, and hoped this year’s initiatives would be even more successful than the inaugural campaign last year.

“In these tough economic times, it can be so easy for businesses to concentrate purely on their own operations - and that is totally understandable. Similarly to what has been noted in the commercial world, most charities in New Zealand have felt the direct financial impact of the recession,” Ms Robertson said.

“Whilst we have had a decrease in donations we have at the same time found that our core supporters have been 'digging deeper'. So to have a group of hospitality businesses get behind us with their time and commitment is simply fantastic, and very much appreciated.

“City Mission fundraising staff and volunteers will be spending time in each of the six venues to support their activities, so expect to see our signage throughout the locations,” she added.

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