The mood was friendly as the team with decades of experience helping others, worked like a well-oiled machine packing and stacking boxes and bags full of goodies.

St Vincent de Paul Kooringal Conference Secretary Maryanne Loughlin said generous families, individuals and businesses have all stepped up to help.

“We had the food appeal a couple of Sundays ago, and they will be going to people in Kooringal who have requested them, next Sunday,” Mrs Loughlin said.

“We have 86 boxes packed, and 86 bags of food plus another 15 bags for court advocacy.”

Items for the hampers have been carefully selected, with a big emphasis on bringing joy to families.

“There’s Christmas pudding, Christmas cake, lollies, custard, drinks, more lollies, biscuits, and of course a tin of baked beans and a tin of spaghetti,” said Mrs Loughlin.

“It’s all part of the hamper, and for breakfast the next morning, we have packed honey, vegemite and Kellogg’s Cornflakes.”

As well as all this, there is the most important addition of toys, with Vinnies stipulating the Christmas treasures must be new, as many children from low-income families often miss out.

“We’re distributing toys to 102 children and once again the schools and the Bikies’ Toy Run have been very, very generous in helping us there,” Mrs Loughlin said.

For these volunteers, it’s a highlight to a long year of helping others.

St Vincent de Paul works tirelessly year-round to give those less fortunate much-needed help by providing food, vouchers, clothes, furniture and financial help with bills.

It’s an expensive business which relies solely on the generosity of the community to meet the insatiable and growing need of Wagga’s poor.

For many families, this is the only way they will be able to celebrate Christmas as any income is immediately diverted to paying bills and buying basic food.

St Vincent de Paul says it’s looking for more volunteers to help spread the workload.