Big Save Furniture is bringing more stock into Hawkes Bay to meet local needs
Napier-headquartered Big Save Furniture has donated hundreds of mattresses to the local relief effort in the wake of Cyclone Gabrielle.
Speaking to Newsroom, Big Save managing director Tom Mckimm said the company had donated 350 or so mattresses towards the Hastings Civil Defence effort and had another 200 or 300 heading to Work and Income in Gisborne at cheap pricing.
Originally holding between 600 and 700 mattresses at its warehouse, the company has run out and plans to bring more up from Wellington to meet the local need.
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Its warehouse and head office were relatively unaffected by the cyclone and it is putting its trucks to work in the wider community.
“We're just using our logistics to help wherever possible moving generators, bananas, furniture, and all sorts of weird things. Just helping every way possible.”
Five or six of its 25 stores were shut for a few days, but all were open as of yesterday.
Mckimm said its wider network was enabling the efforts.
“All those other stores are supporting us doing what we're doing.”
With all those stores back operating, we just take the hit, take it as a donation or if we can do commercial supply, then we'll do it at the cheapest possible pricing we can.
He said Big Save hadn’t planned on doing any press or marketing around its donations and that the entire community was doing its bit.
“Hawkes Bay being a regional sort of place, everyone's just getting stuck in and helping out, people are supplying diggers at no cost or doing anything they can to help.
“It's great to see so many people getting out there and getting stuck in and doing everything, even if it's not their core business, just doing everything and anything to help out wherever they can, which is brilliant.”
Mckimm said Big Save hadn't seen any increased demand for furniture after the two consecutive severe weather events in the North Island but expected they would come in time after insurance claims were paid out.
