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GIFT WRAPPING

‘Find your Festive’ this Christmas and get your gift wrapped.

This year we have our very own wrapping paper available at our gift wrapping booths, designed by New Zealand artist, Evie Kemp.  The paper depicts a ‘Kiwi Christmas’ using iconic symbols such as Pohutukawa flowers, jandals, fish n chips, ice creams and more.  See if you can name all the iconic symbols?

For a gold coin donation, get your gifts wrapped by our chosen community group. Thank you for supporting Papaioea Rose City Lions, who get all of the proceeds from your donations.

You can find our gift wrapping booths:

Outside Jay Jays from Thursday 10 December – Tuesday 24 December.

MEET EVIE KEMP, GIFT WRAP DESIGNER

Evie Kemp is an Auckland based artist and designer. A lot of her work is in textile or surface design; she spends her days applying her love of colour and pattern to almost anything she can get her hands on!

For our Christmas paper, Evie was given the brief to create an iconically “Christmassy” design but without the typical (and off-season) imagery of snowy scenes. Evie instead incorporated the icons of a kiwi Christmas… “because our Christmas traditions are important too, they’re just different!”

Evie’s favourite icon on the wrapping paper is the fish and chips! “My favourite!” And the cheeky Pukeko stealing a chip!  Whilst Evie loves a kiwi Christmas now, it definitely wasn’t the case when she first moved to New Zealand!

“My Family moved to NZ [from England] when I was 14 and we were living up in Red Beach [on the Hibiscus Coast, Auckland]. My parent’s insisted on the “Christmas Day at the beach” thing as it was such a novel idea for them. The weather (typically) though wasn’t playing ball and it was rainy and as a very grumpy teenager I  just went and sat in the car!”

Evie has since come around to enjoying and embracing the positives of having a Christmas lunch outdoors!

Evie loved creating our wrap knowing it would be beneath trees on Christmas Day! “It’s a real thrill to see everyone getting their gifts wrapped in it at the wrapping stations in the run up to Christmas. It feels like after the year we’ve had there isn’t a better time to truly celebrate the uniqueness of a kiwi Christmas!”

Find out more about Evie Kemp here: WEBSITE and INSTAGRAM

WHERE DOES YOUR DONATION GO

Many in our community will benefit from the generosity of The Plaza customers donating to have their gifts wrapped this Christmas. This is all made possible because of the Papaioea Rose City Lions who volunteer on our gift wrapping booths and share out all the proceeds to different groups in our community each year. Read on to find out more about Papaioea Rose City Lions and how they intend to use your donations.

The New Zealand Lions Clubs have been operating for over 60 years. Lions Clubs were initially formed to provide a service to the community. Today their service framework has grown to focus on global and local causes. From a local perspective the Papaioea Rose City Club spends a lot of time catering for local events such as Striders Annual Run & Marathon, Relay for Life (Cancer Society) , a Christmas luncheon for the elderly and many more. They are keen to give back on environmental causes and throughout the year organise clean-ups at local parks and playgrounds. They have also participate in “Take a Kid Fishing” days, cater for official openings of buildings and meetings, and do the Christmas wrapping in The Plaza.

Organisations doing real things with the money donated.

The Trust Committee decides what charities to donate the Christmas wrapping proceeds to at the end of our Lions year (June).  The proceeds raised last year (2019) were donated to the following charities – Stroke Club (PN), St John Ambulance (PN), N.Z. Neurological Foundation and Riding for the Disabled (Feilding).  Each charity received $3,000.00.

The St John Ambulance donation went to their fundraising for a new Ambulance Station in Cuba Street, the Riding for the Disabled put their donation towards ramp extension improvements, the N.Z. Neurological Foundation are going to use their donation towards research into Motor Neurone Disease and the Stroke Club will use their donation for social afternoons, trips to points of interest and exercise afternoons for their members.

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