This project started from requests for community help to get presents for children. 

Amy Doughty (nee McNabb) has run the Community Secret Santa campaign since 2019. She has facilitated hundreds of children receiving Christmas presents from santas in the community.  Amy organised the distribution of hundreds of gifts through the Facebook pages Pay it Forward Lower Hutt and Make a Difference Hutt Valley and Facebook Messenger. Amy has spent hundreds of hours messaging with whanau and santas. 

Individually organising is very time intensive and limited the number of santas and children Amy could match. This year, Rita Atkinson-Leask joined the team to try and ease the administrative load. Amy will continue to run the project on the Pay it Forward Lower Hutt and Make a Difference Hutt Valley Facebook pages.

Richie Atkinson contributed to the technology side of this project by providing technology advice and creating the forms. Richie has extensive I.T. experience and is willing to donate a few hours to advise on technology solutions and fixes for community projects. Contact us to discuss your community project and we will see what we can do together. 

We are trialling using Microsoft Forms and this website to streamline administration. At its heart our kaupapa of manaakitanga remains the same. Only Amy will be able to see and manage personal information submitted in the forms. We know that it can be incredibly hard to ask for assistance. We respect the mana and privacy of whanau who nominate children.  Amy will liaise with Kelli from Kokiri Marae to ensure there are no double ups or other issues.

Amy continues to personally match children and santas. Amy and Rita volunteer their time and costs incurred running this project so that all money raised will be given to Kokiri Marae Pātaka Kai in time for their 2024 Christmas gifts for children and hampers to go out.

Rita created and manages this website. She formalised the kaupapa and is focused on making the sign up process as easy, transparent and streamlined as possible. She is working with local community groups and networks to try and recruit more santas to meet demand. Rita chose the huttcommunity domain name because this project is at its core about building and connecting community in Lower Hutt. She hopes that in the future Hutt Community can be a place to connect people with information, support, local events and social groups. 

This year Kokiri Marae Pātaka Kai has agreed to help with dropping off, picking up and delivery of presents. Some of our small business supporters are also drop off points. This is a huge help for us. It makes it easier for santas and children to be part of our exciting project. We are still happy to arrange a time that suits you for present drop off and collection by Facebook messaging Amy or e-mail. 

While the drop off/pick up locations and way to apply may have changed, the way that this Secret Santa is managed and overseen by Amy remains the same. Please let us know if you have any comments, feedback or feedforward about the changes. In the biggest year of this project, 260 children received gifts. We hope that the technology and distribution changes mean that this project can reach many more children and santas to spread manaakitanga, Christmas joy and strengthen community ties.

Contact rita@huttcommunity.co.nz to get more information on the project