ers RAS Toy Drive & Magic Moments. The idea for the project stemmed from a conversation between Hatzis and her husband about the financial impact of Covid on the community.  After doing some research into the topic, she discovered that 1.1 million Australians will go without food at Christmas and 15 per cent will go without presents.  “Nothing can undo the damage of the last two years, but I hope it brings a spark of joy to the lives of people who need it most, particularly the kids of Australia. As a mum, my heart broke for what I know so many families are experiencing right now,” she said.  So Hatzis talked to her team to see what they could do to help and devised a plan to deliver a donation scheme in just four weeks. Industry effort  In order to source products that were suitable for children and teenagers (aged 10-18 years), the team at Frank Body needed to recruit more brands to be part of the scheme.  “We reached out to any connections that we had to see who would potentially have stock available. Some of it was cold messaging people on LinkedIn; we put together a proposal and just sent it to everybody that we knew in a suitable space,” Hatzis told Inside Retail.  “We had general managers, CMOs, digital marketing managers, ops managers, people from all walks of businesses jumping on these calls to see what we could coordinate together.” Thanks to their efforts and the generosity of brand partners, they managed to pull together 12,000 units of stock that will be delivered to families, whether they are purchased or not.   “I was really touched by how much people were willing to hustle in what was already a really busy time of the year leading up to Christmas,” Hatzis said.  “It says a lot about the people and the philosophy behind those brands. They’ve obviously attracted talents within their team that care about contributing more to the world than just selling products. We’re all commercial businesses but we have large consumer bases that we can talk to to actually initiate meaningful change in the world, and I think that’s a responsibility of every single brand on the planet.” Supply chain challenges Many of the products are between $5 – $20, a deliberate attempt to be accessible to consumers who want to give back but have also felt the economic impact of Covid.  One of the major challenges that the project has faced is the global supply chain crisis, which meant that fewer brands had excess stock freely available. Hatzis said they are starting to feel the real impact of Covid in the business now.  “Stock that left our Australian manufacturers in August is still floating off the California coastline. That was our Christmas stock and it’s [likely to] arrive into the port on Christmas Day,” she said.  “We have a huge stock problem in that we’re going to be trying to move a lot of our holiday stuff in the new year in North America and Canada. Every [bran]we’re talking to is experiencing similar issues and raw material shortages.” Hatzis is hopeful that next year the project can return on a bigger scale.  “We would really like it to become an annual initiative, and hopefully with some forward planning, we can make progress and really get the word out there,” she said.