A grassroots Christmas card movement is hoping to send 100,000 handmade cards to people who are alone this holiday season.
Hannah and Jayden Rodgers. Photo: RNZ / Jessie Chiang
Hannah Rodgers started Sending Love last year after she and her son Jayden decided to make and send a card to someone as an act of kindness.
Different communities across the country also jumped on board soon they had 32,000 cards to send.
Ms Rodgers said she never expected the idea to catch on with hundreds of people across the country.
"So last year we thought we'd only get a few and then after 32,000... we're hoping to get 100,000 this year and go wider, so go [to] hospitals and people living in isolation," she said.
Ms Rodgers said anyone who wants to join in can drop off their handmade cards at community drop boxes listed on the Sending Love website.
They range from places like Dargaville to Whakatane to Greymouth.
Elisabeth Raphael. Photo: RNZ / Jessie Chiang
The cards will then be posted to people living in retirement villages at resthomes and hospitals.
Ms Rodgers hoped they could expand the Sending Love project even more.
"So things like keeping it open all year round and being able to do birthday cards and stuff around Easter and Anzac Day rather than just to constrict it to Christmas," she said.
Six-year-old Jayden Devin-Rodgers was excited to do it again.
"It felt good because when I did it I just felt like I was being kind," he said.
The cards have certainly made a difference to 89-year-old Elisabeth Raphael who lives in Selwyn Village.
"It came when I had been fighting a pretty big illness and circumstances were challenging," she said.
"That parcel, with the card...touched me so deeply."
For Lesley Dunne, the card was a nice surprise.
"We can't go far or do a lot, we do go out, like go on the buses," she said.
"I'd just gone up, got the cards, come home and opened them and I wondered where this one came from."
The cut off date for the card drop off is 9 December.
