2020 Christmas gift appeal through PCYC and Kooringal High School to focus on teens doing it tough

They noticed that very few of the donations are given with on teenagers in mind.

"A lot of these Christmas gift drives focus on younger kids, but we're a high school, we're all teenagers so we know the enjoyment of Christmas doesn't stop when you're a teen," said 17-year-old Kooringal vice captain Chloe Hind.

To rectify the problem, a couple of weeks ago Chloe reached out to Wagga PCYC manager Brett Somerville to start a teenager-focused Christmas gift drive to provide cheer to members of the city's oft-forgotten demographic.

"We work with a lot of teens and they're doing it tough this year, tougher than most really," Mr Somerville said.

Appealing to the school community, they have now collected enough gifts for about 50 families. By the time the drive finishes on Friday afternoon, they hope they will be able to double that.

"We didn't want any family to not have something to open on Christmas morning," Chloe said.

When Chloe and her fellow school leaders originally put out the call for donations, they did not expect the groundswell of support they were confronted with.

It has especially come from some unexpected places.

"A lot of the gifts have actually come from our Yazidi kids, they don't even celebrate Christmas," Chloe said.

"One girl was actually late to school because she was getting gifts to donate.

"We had one girl in year 7 who handmade a stack of scrunchies."

With help from Wagga's police officers, Mr Somerville and the PCYC team will begin home-delivering the gifts from next week.