Operation Joy gets into the Christmas spirit

Roxy McDougall loves Christmas and the excitement it brings her young daughter, which is why she signs up to Operation Joy each year and buys gifts for another child who might otherwise miss out.

The charity Helping Families Nelson will deliver about 500 bags of Christmas gifts to local children this year through Operation Joy which have all been donated by families and individuals.

For Roxy, who already has the Christmas tree decorated in the corner of the room at the beginning of November, Operation Joy is becoming a tradition for the young family. It is a flow-on from her own childhood in South Africa where her parents took the family to orphanages around Christmas and participated in toy runs.

While South Africa had stark differences in wealth, she says, as a teacher in New Zealand she also sees how differently families live here. She wants her children to think about others and learn about giving as well.

“As Charlotte grows up, I’d like her to think about others and have empathy. Being a teacher, you see how different Christmas looks like for so many kids.”

It is the third year that Courtney Vercoe and her young family in Nelson have participated in Operation Joy and she says it means they can brighten up someone else’s Christmas Day while her boys learn to think about other people.

“I thought it was a really great way of giving back to those in the community who find this time of year really challenging. It’s also a good time for our kids to learn that Christmas is different for different families.

“We don’t know who it is for, but we think it is a good way to go and buy things that will brighten their day. It also opens up those discussions with our boys around it being expensive to buy food and clothes and people don’t have a lot of leftover money to go out and buy presents for their children.”

The charity’s founder, Kristy Rowe, says she has about 350 donating families so far and is looking for more to buy gifts for a further 150 children or so.

Local agencies nominate families who could benefit from Operation Joy and donors are matched with a child or several children. Kristy says donors know the age and gender of the children who need gifts, and if the donating family has children she tries to get a close match in age.

“Most donors buy for more than one child and some will buy gifts for eight to 10, which is quite outstanding. People are very, very generous; it always humbles me how generous people are.

“We’ve had some amazing feedback from the agencies in the past who send us emails from families about how it has made a huge difference to their family and, without it, their kids wouldn’t get anything. They just appreciate the support and to see the smiles on their kids’ faces.”

For families looking for cheaper options to fill the Christmas stockings this year, Helping Families is running a second-hand toy sale on November 30. This year the toys will be $5 a bag after last year’s toy giveaway was ruined by what she described at the time as appalling behaviour by some people who showed no respect for those around them to get what they wanted.

“We’re trying to manage it. We don’t like the fact we have to charge, but we can’t have what happened last year, happen again.”