In one of the biggest donations they have had to date, boxes of brand new clothes arrived at Supergrans Tairawhiti yesterday leaving them “extremely overwhelmed”.
The boxes were full of hundreds of items including jackets, fleece tops, raincoats, shorts, and hats, in all sizes.
Manufacturing company Global Velocity Group made the donation. North Island sales representative Paul Anderson said he was pretty chuffed to see the work the Supergrans team were doing in Tairawhiti.
Worth thousands of dollars, the clothing will be distributed among families who are struggling.
Hunting and Fishing store manager Julie Dowsing, who organised the gift, said after many years in retail an idea had popped into her head.
She was watching a television show on poverty in New Zealand when she thought about stock left over at the end of each year. She thought it was worth a try to ask supplier Global Velocity if they had any discontinued lines lying around.
A well-timed call to the right person, who had just been wondering what to do with that leftover stock, and it was boxed up and driven to Gisborne.
It was a pretty lucky phone call and a good score, said Julie.
“It's about giving back to the community. The community take care of us and we are well supported by the town and the country. It's lovely to be able to give back.”
Global Velocity's Paul Anderson said it was pretty rewarding knowing the clothes were going where they would be appreciated.
The company supplies a number of stores, including Hunting and Fishing, and also makes the school uniforms for Ilminster Intermediate.
“Julie from the Gisborne store reached out and asked if we had anything lying around, probably not expecting the scale of what we had. It's about four or five years' build up of leftover stock, that just goes into a pile.
“It was a great time for a spring clean. We were really chuffed to see the work these ladies are doing in Gisborne,” said Paul, who drove the boxes of clothes through yesterday.
Supergrans manager Linda Coulston said this morning they had done an inventory of what was in the boxes and were, “extremely overwhelmed with the donation”.
“We have a lot of ideas of how we will distribute this large donation to families in need.”
Linda said more and more businesses were coming forward to them with socially-conscious initiatives.
“That's really awesome. It is wonderful to see this kind of support and we thank Julie and the Hunting and Fishing crew for thinking of us.”
“Any donation that we receive will be utilised wel
l and distributed. This is wonderful, a huge thanks to Global Velocity.”