St Joseph’s School was happy to receive a generous donation from the LDS Church and Federal Pacific Insurance yesterday.

A lawnmower plus multiple boxes of books and 60 chairs were presented to the school in front of all the students yesterday morning.

Savenaca Tukitoba, the school’s principal, said that they were deeply grateful for the generosity of the two parties.

“We have been dying for a lawn mower for so long so to have them come forward and gift us with one was so good as we have been borrowing lawnmowers from parents and friends to keep the school maintained,” Tukitoba said. “They brought it right to our doorstep.”

Federal Pacific Insurance decided to make their donation to celebrate six years of service to the local community.

Eleanor Riviera from Federal Pacific Insurance said: “We have been with the community for six years now. This month we are celebrating our sixth birthday and we thought what better way to celebrate than to give back to the community.”

“We thought ‘Let’s see what we can do.’”

Although they are a small company, she shared they just wanted to say thank you in some way to the community.

“It was very special that we could do something like this for the school who are looking after our kids. This is just a small step for us but it was great.”

The students thanked their visitors in song and also sang happy birthday to Federal Pacific Insurance before disembarking to take part in their Kia Orana Day cultural activities and games while the visitors enjoyed morning tea with the school board.