We Are Halfway Towards Our Goal

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 286, 3 December 1938, Page 2 (Supplement)

We Are Halfway Towards Our Goal

Hello, Everyone— I think most of us will agree that one of the nicest parts of giving anything is to watch the expressions of pleasure, joy, excitement and gratitude, each in itk turn, flash over the face and into the eyes of the one who receives the gift. That is why it is so nice to deliver gifts in person. During recent weeks we have been sending out the invitations to members of our Christmas holiday party, and now the answers are commencing to arrive at Sunshine House. True, we were not present at the reading of our letters, but some of the replies indicate the wild joy that swept through the homes at the reading of our invitations. So that those who have contributed to our funds may share more fully in the giving, we print extracts from some of the replies. All will remember Joan, the eleven-year-old of whom we wrote first. This is what her mother savs: Yes. of course, \jou have our permission as regards Joan joining you on this Wonderful trip, and I feci most grateful to you all that she has been given 'he chance of such a delightful holiday). Joan is, of course, most terribly thrilled, and can thinly about little else at present, and I k n ow she will en/op every minute of her time." Did we tell you that Amy came on to the Correspondence School rolls because the long tramp of 5 | miles to the nearest school brought on severe attacks of bronchitis? She is still subject to these attacks, and was in bed when our message of joy arrived. One feels after reading her mother's message below that our letter was better than the visit of any doctor:— Amy n>as in bed with another attack of bronchitis when your letters came, and her eyes shone with gladness when / took her letter into her, and now she tall(s of nothing else." Alter telling us how excited she was. Amy replied to our question: "What would you like to do while you are in Auckland?" by saying:— • When I come to Auckland I would like to sec the studio, the museum, the zoo and the shops. I also have a cousin / Would like to sec." ou have not heard about Nancy yet, although she has been invited. In an enthusiastic reply Nancy says: — "When it n>as first suggested that I might have a trip to Auckland soon it seemed almost too good to be true, but now your l(ind letter makes it seem more rcj :il. I have never been very far from home. Whangarei, which is twenty miles away. is the biggest town I have seen, and once my auntie took me to Russell. You will sec that a visit to Auckland will be just wonder 1 ful, and I am sure I Would have had to wait a long time if this chance had not come my way. ) r nu ask what I would like to do when I come to Auckland. Weil, J am sure that as everything will he new / will be pleased with anything you arrange." We told you all about Grace last week and now here is the reply from her mother: "My husband and 1 thank i>ou very, vcrp ntuch for inviting Crace, and are quite willing that she should join in this lovely holiday you are all planning for the children. Although Crace is a little shy about going among strangers, she is getting quite excited about it all, and I'm sure will enjoy every moment while there. We are so pleased she is being given such a wonderful opportunity of mingling with other girls of her own age, a thing she has been more or less denied where we live." We have other letters, too, full of appreciation and thanks and conveying a small idea of the excitement that is brightening up so many Northland homes, but these are sufficient to let givers participate in the joy of giving. With three weeks to go btfore our campaign closes on Christmas Eve, we have passed the half-way mark along the read to the objective we set ourselves. This has been made possible by several most generous donations. Notable among those is the anonymous gift from "A Friend" of £4—with the promise of another £1 to come—just a pencilled note on a "Star" advertising form: "For one dear child for a good holiday.—A Friend. Gifts of this nature give one a warm feeling inside. Then, too, there was the donation of £2 2/ from the Mornnsville Women s Institute—a practical interpretation by that branch of ideal "backblocks ahead"—the objective of the institute. 7\ And so we close this, the fifth week of our Happiness Campaign, with the announcement that holidays have been assured for no less than fourteen isolated young Northlanders.