NZ – New Plymouth Special Children’s Extravaganza

On Saturday 11th July at 10.45am, 700 children and 300 caregivers came pouring in through the front doors of New Plymouth’s TSB Stadium for the annual Special Children’s Extravaganza. These Taranaki and Wanganui children, ranging from those who have life-threatening illnesses to the physically impaired or underprivileged, had just arrived for a fun day out.

Mark and Tracy Wikstrom organize the Special Children’s Extravaganza, and enlist the sponsorship of local businesses to give these children a day that they wouldn’t normally get. Treated with a range of awesome activities from the toy cave of free toys, bouncy castles, face-painting and on-stage entertainment, this was a truly unforgettable experience for the children.

Free hot food and drink was thrown in by RRT for good measure. 1000 beef burgers were cooked on the new RRT barbeque trailer, with buns generously donated by PaknSave, and served up with free water bottles to keep these kids smiling, bouncing and running throughout the day.

The day was only made possible by generous business support throughout Taranaki and Wanganui, and RRT also served and fed these business sponsors with savouries, sandwiches, filled rolls and slices.

The RRT team were also invited to help out with the very rewarding job of handing out free toys in the toy cave. The delight on some of the children’s faces was gold. PaknSave donated their surplus boxes of apples and flavoured milk to RRT, who distributed these to grateful recipients at a later event.

The Wikstrom’s were rapt with the support of RRT, and there was just one question, “Will you be back next year?”

RRT were stoked to help achieve the Event organisers goal of “Putting a Smile on every child’s face” and be a part of an awesome day.