Tuhia ki te rangi, tuhia ki te whenua, tuhia ki te ngākau, ko te mea nui, ko te aroha - Write it in the sky, write it on the land, write it on the heart, the most important thing is love.

Shoebox Christmas exists to collect love from the community, and use it to create moments of joy for tamariki and isolated elders.

We started this kaupapa in 2014 with one school because we believed the time and effort bringing the community together to create a moment of pure joy for our tamariki was worth it. Since then we learned how many people in the community don't realise how much extra aroha some of our children need and want to help, but don't know how. So we've been reaching out to faciliated this manaaki wherever we can. in 2021 we delivered 16,250 Christmas gifts to tamariki in 15 rohe from Southland to Whakatāne.

Since then we've also started gifting to our older members of society who don't have friends or whānau nearby, to remind them we still care.

The purpose of the kaupapa isn’t about the gift itself, but based on the understanding that for tamariki, and especially those in challenging situations, the more positive experiences they receive, the more likely they are to make positive decisions later in life. This is one way we can create a little happiness at a stressful time of year for whānau, and let our children know the community has their back.

We connect gifters in the community with tamariki and elders who could do with an extra smile at Christmas, and facilitate the giving of a koha or gift. For the most part this is done through kura, primary schools, kōhanga reo, kindergartens, other ECE, and community groups like Women’s Refuge centres, Grandparents Raising Grandchildren etc. Some of the schools or ECE ask for koha to be given to all of the children, and some give whānau the option to opt-out or opt-in. Our schools know their community and whānau best, so we leave it up to you to make that call.

1. Organisation signs up and sends a list of people to receive koha. This includes an identifier like initials, first name only, or something else you can use to identify who that child is, age, gender, and something the child or elder is interested in or loves. This is how the gifter makes the koha special and personalised. It's all in the template and we've spent the last 7 years working with schools to make this process as easy as possible.

2. We let the community know how they can help - of course any help you and your networks/whānau can give in spreading the word makes this mahi much easier!

3. Gifters start signing up.

4. Each gifter is matched with a child or elder and their details as above (initials, age, gender, interests for tamariki, our elders have different information given by their carers).

5. Gifters put together a koha their matched child or elder will love.

6. During the drop-off window (mid-October to mid-November), gifters bring the koha into the school or community service office/drop-off location. The act of going into that space is for some of these gifters the first time stepping into such a central part of our communities.

7. The kura or service then distributes these to the tamariki or elders in whatever way makes sense for their whānau. Some put on an event with whānau and tamariki receiving these koha at the school, some give the koha to the tamariki to take home with them, some have an event where the tamariki open these as part of their last day at kura. It's up to you how you do this. Again, you know our community and whānau best.

8. That's it. Together we ensure the community works together.

Protecting the mana and safety of our tamariki is an important part of the project, and while most schools & organisations send the first and last name because it's easy to export this from their SMS, the label which gifters receive includes only ever includes their initials, age, gender and class. You can also send the initials only. Our tamariki protection policy is here: