About 1468 bunches of daffodils – complete with 30 daffodils to a bunch – and $35 dollars for a bunch. It's a day of numbers, logistics and hope.

Hope for the 60 New Zealanders who today, and every day, learn they have cancer.

Hope in each bloom: Lions Patsy Arlidge, Beverley Mayer and Helen Hepburn bunching daffodils. Photo: Chris Callinan.

And by now you will have bought a daffodil, if not a bunch of daffodils or a small yellow button hole, for a donation to mark Daffodil Day, the Cancer Society's most important fundraising and awareness day.

'It's a massive operation,” says communications manager for the Waikato/Bay of Plenty Cancer Society Maria Low.

'Preparations began two months ago and involved hundreds of people and volunteers.”

And tonight, when numbers are crunched, the region will have injected another $700,000 into crucial cancer research and support services.

In a Cameron Road church hall earlier this week, there was a lot of goodwill and many willing hands.

A crew from the Harbour City Lions Club was 'bunching” – turning 44,040 individual daffodils from Gordonton into saleable bouquets.

Earlier still, another group of volunteers and students, doing a contact centre course in Hamilton, cold-called nearly every business in Tauranga and Mount Maunganui to pre-sell the flowers.

'A lot of businesses and many, many phone calls over two weeks,” says Maria. It doesn't necessarily translate to a bunch a business, but nearly 1500 bunches were sold.

And when the bunching was done, the Harbour City Lions handed the flowers over to more volunteers from Tauranga Taxis, the BOP Vintage Car Club, civil defence and Countdown supermarket managers for delivery.

'No way could we do this without volunteers,” says Maria.

Last year, 160,000 daffodils were supplied to the overall Waikato/Bay division of the Cancer Society for their annual fundraiser.

Each one reminded us of the new season and the hope for the one in three New Zealanders affected by cancer.