Auckland City Mission: 42k calls in one day jams phone lines

Auckland City Mission says it is worried about the unmet need of the city’s most vulnerable, after one of its distribution centres for Christmas food parcels logged 42,000 calls in one day. Papakura Marae is one of the five centres working with the Mission to feed Aucklanders this Christmas, reports Stuff. On Wednesday afternoon, the Mission said its Christmas phone lines were down “due to the unprecedented and extremely high demand”. Demand for the Mission’s standard food parcels is sitting at double what it was in February. During lockdown, staff saw weeks when it was triple what they used to manage.