Donations of food and gifts
Did you know? You can also donate online to our Christmas Appeal.
This Christmas, The Salvation Army anticipates distributing around 450,000 toys and 150,000 food vouchers or hampers.
Donations of new toys, gifts and contributions toward food vouchers are vital in helping us to achieve this goal. You can give via your local Salvation Army centre/church or the Kmart Wishing Tree Appeal.
Local Salvation Army Centre
Toys can be donated at your local Salvation Army church or community services centre. Some centres also put hampers together so call ahead and check what is needed most. If you donate food for hampers, make sure you give non-perishable food items (some suggestions are listed below).
To find your nearest centre, click here.
Examples of non-perishable food items:
- Tin of ham
- Tin of salmon/fish/tuna
- Cans of vegetables
- Plum pudding
- Christmas cake
- Tin of fruit
- Packet of jelly
- Custard
- Bottles of soft drink
- Tin/packet biscuits
- Christmas goodies (nuts, lollies, pretzels, chocolates, etc.)
- Tea/coffee
Kmart Wishing Tree Appeal
The Wishing Tree Appeal is Australia's largest Christmas gift appeal, with an aim to collect more than 450,000 gifts for Australians in need from November until Christmas Eve.
To participate in the Appeal simply place a wrapped or unwrapped gift under the Christmas Wishing Tree located at the front of any Kmart store. Take a gift tag from the tree to specify the age and gender of a suitable recipient and place it with your gift.
Gifts do not need to be purchased from Kmart. Stores simply act as facilitators, enabling welfare groups to reach the wider public. As an alternative to donating a gift, people can make a cash contribution at any Kmart store register. 100% of cash contributions are converted by Kmart into Kmart gift cards, which are then distributed by the welfare groups, allowing Appeal recipients to choose their own Christmas gift.
- New toys
- Clothing
- CDs
- Books
- Toiletry items
Children in need are the same as all other children and like to have the latest popular toys, gifts and clothing.
Please remember children of all ages, including teenagers. We often experience a shortage of gifts for older children/teenagers, particularly adolescent boys aged 10-16 years.