The owners of Hillmount had great plans for celebrating the family owned lifestyle garden centre's 80th anniversary but instead Robin and his son Alan were faced with the challenges of sustaining the business through the pandemic to serve the community and secure employment for the 100 full time, part time and casual staff.

Throughout this pandemic year the Mercer family has been donating garden furniture and equipment to the emergency services, schools, charities, churches and community groups and now at Christmas they provided support to various charities including St Vincent de Paul.

Wayne Little and Terence Morrison are pictured ready to make the final charity donation of the year with a delivery of 500 toys to SVP for their Christmas Family Appeal.