He could have asked for a mountain of toys for his birthday, but instead, Oscar Mitchell asked his friends to help him help the Tauranga SPCA.

The just turned six-year-old who celebrated his birthday recently was down at the SPCA in Greerton today to deliver a very special gift to the non-profit organisation – a donation of $230.

In lieu of presents from his friends this year, the incredibly generous youngster asked them to instead make a donation to the SPCA, which he collected at his birthday party last Sunday.

'The SPCA takes care of animals and finds them new homes. I told them [his friends] not to bring presents because I wanted to get money for the SPCA, because I want them to feed the animals,” he explains.

Altruism clearly runs in the Mitchell family.

For his seventh birthday Oscar's older brother Conor also asked his friends not to bring him presents, but to bring along a donation of canned and non-perishable food which he then donated to the Salvation Army's Foodbank.

'I chose the foodbank because people don't have much money at times and don't really have much food. They need food to live,” says Conor.

It was an easy choice for him to help out the Sallies, 'They're really kind”.

Their father Chris Mitchell says friends of the family did something similar with their kids and decided he'd run the idea past the boys, thinking they'd be totally against it, 'but they were really supportive of the idea”.

'Parents end up getting all these presents for these parties, but they don't know if the kids want them or not. Sometimes they just end up sitting at the bottom of the draw, it just seems to me like a bit of a waste.”

Needless to say – Chris is immensely proud of his sons.

'It's given them a better outlook on life, it's not just about themselves now, it's about helping other people and animals as well. To me it feels like a win-win all round.”

Tauranga SPCA animal attendant Cristin Sim says the generosity shown by Oscar today is 'absolutely amazing” and the organisation is totally blown away by his selflessness.

'We knew he wanted to raise money for his birthday party, but we had no idea it would be this much. Some people like to give us gifts of cat and dog toys, but this amount of money is just incredible and really, really cool.

'The money will go towards our vet bills which is quite large as we have to get all our babies de-sexed, vaccinated, microchipped and checked over.”

Oscar and Conor with the money raised at Oscar's birthday last Sunday.