Tauranga families are showing their Christmas spirit by donating gifts to charity Eden of Hope – a charity run by a Golden Sands School student.

These gifts have since been given to Homes of Hope, spreading the Christmas spirit to those who are less fortunate.

'I think more than $1000 worth of gifts have been donated this year,” says Sindy Coetzee, who has been helping gather all the gifts and dropped them off to Homes of Hope.

'This is the sixth year that we have been donating gifts to the children at Homes of Hope.”

Katelyn, who is he student at Golden Sands School who created the charity Eden of Hope, got her school involved as well as the community.

People kindly donated gifts to the charity, so Katelyn could donate them to Homes of Hope.

'This year, we have had such an amazing response and Katelyn liked Homes of Hope because it sounded really similar to Eden of Hope, and she was quite touched with how lucky she is and gets to spend Christmas with her family which she realises now is more important than receiving gifts,” says Sindy.

'These children have gifts to make them happy for a day, but it will never substitute the lack of a family or parents on occasions like Christmas.

'There were parents that donated bags of gifts that were hundreds of dollars, we had families that made sure every child had a present, like a pair of pants and a top, and a toothbrush and toothpaste, and there were just some people who donated books, toiletries, food and snacks for a party.

'What we did when we dropped them off, we had obviously wrapped them all up, but we made lists of what was for each child, and individual bags and stuff and it was just amazing to see the generosity of the community that we live in.

'Whether it was just one item that they were able to donate or 10 or 20, the value to the child is exactly the same, the meaning is the same, it's really inspiring.”

Next year, as Katelyn heads off to college, they have plans of make the collection bigger and better.

'We would like to have the college students design a float for Christmas and we are going to make it bigger and better. That's what we aim to do every year,” says Sindy.