15/02/2026
LOVE GRACE HANDBAG APPEAL 🌷 👜
The Booklover is very honoured to be one of the drop off points for the Love Grace Handbag Appeal again this year. You bring us your handbags - filled with new toiletries and hygiene items - which are later distributed to women’s refuges across New Zealand.
Created in memory of Grace Millane, a young British traveller who tragically lots her life whilst backpacking around New Zealand in 2018, the charity combines Grace’s love of handbags with a way of helping women in need and escaping domestic violence.
Now in its 5th year the Appeal runs from 14th February to 8th March, so from Valentine’s Day to International Women’s Day.
The handbags serve a dual purpose:
1. Providing immediate dignity and essentials, where women and children have arrived in a refuge with nothing but the clothes they stand up in.
2. Offering a message of love and empowerment. The bags are a tangible symbol of community care.
To date, more than 15,000 handbags have been gifted to women in Aotearoa. Around 50,000 women and children are referred to refuge services each year, with 71 crisis calls made each day.
Every handbag is more than a gift, it’s a message of hope, unity, and love from one kiwi to another.
For more information and to see what is suitable to put into your bag, please see: facebook.com/lovegracenz
