Te Awamutu area Daffodil Day co-ordinator Kathy Keighley
Despite the difficulties posed by Covid-19 restrictions, Te Awamutu residents stepped up to buy bunches of blooms and other related items during the Daffodil Day collection for the Cancer Society.
Te Awamutu area co-ordinator Kathy Keighley said while the Covid-19 situation meant the event was lower key this year, sales from her three stands in town had gone well. However, there were fewer blooms available, fewer volunteers and no roaming collectors in the streets, she added.
“We did have the bar code online donation system this time, and that was well used.”
Kathy said Waipā growers and gardeners offered their blooms for Daffodil Day, and some had come as they do annually from the grounds at Waikeria Prison.
It was largely thanks to the Covid-19 manoeuvring efforts of area volunteers and collectors that Daffodil Day collections were able to go ahead across the region. The event is the organisation’s largest annual fundraiser, and usually takes months of planning by staff and volunteer area co-ordinators in the community, said Waikato/Bay of Plenty Cancer Society chief executive Shelley Campbell.
“It’s fair to say the move to alert level 2 on August 12 meant many of our plans went out the window. There was a lot of hard work behind the scenes to ensure Daffodil Day street collections could continue safely … like distributing sanitiser to all our sites, and making contactless donations possible,” she said.
“We simply couldn’t have done this without the support from our area co-ordinators and their teams of dedicated volunteers. While Daffodil Day may have looked a little different this year under alert level 2, the support from the community has been as heart-warming as ever.”
