What Christmas with the Mongrel Mob Kingdom looks like

It's Christmas time for the Mongrel Mob and in the Waikato, they're giving back to the community.

Newshub went to Hamilton to meet up with Mongrel Mob Kingdom member Paula Ormsby, who's setting up New Zealand's first network for women - Mongrel Mob Wāhine Toa.

She told Newshub her family will be meeting up with the rest of the Kingdom chapter to help "serve the people".

"For many years now what we've done is we've put a Christmas on for families," she told Newshub.

"This is for our families, but it's also for families in the community that are struggling, that can't afford to have Christmas. They come down and they do a community Christmas so we feed the people.

"It's also people that may be lonely, they don't have a family to celebrate with. We have quite a few elderly people that come and join us. Often we go and pick people up because they don't have transportation. So it's not just people who can't afford Christmas, it's people that are lonely."

Mongrel Mob Kingdom member Paula Ormsby.
Mongrel Mob Kingdom member Paula Ormsby. Photo credit: Mongrel Mob Kingdom / Supplied

Ormsby says anywhere from 100 people up normally come for some Christmas kai and company.

And it's not just food. Many in the community are too poor to be able to afford to give their children Christmas presents - and so the Mongrel Mob Kingdom steps in to give the kids prezzies so they don't miss out.

The thought of the Mongrel Mob handing out presents might come as a surprise, but it's part of a reformation of gang culture led by Waikato Mongrel Mob Kingdom Chapter Rangatira Sonny Fatupaito.

Waikato Mongrel Mob Kingdom Chapter Rangatira Sonny Fatupaito.
Waikato Mongrel Mob Kingdom Chapter Rangatira Sonny Fatupaito. Photo credit: Mongrel Mob Kingdom / Supplied

Ormsby acknowledges some women have had "horrific" experiences with violence from gang members while in a domestic relationship with them. However Fatupaito has taken a stand and is turning this around.

"Sonny Fatupaito, the Rangatira, is very much a family-orientated man and his focus is around families and around his children, he's a loving dad himself and so he just shares that," Ormsby told Newshub.

"The most surprising thing for people is when they come along and they see daddies holding their little girls and doing their hair into pigtails and changing the nappies and making the bottles and just doing normal dad duties.

"There's this hyper-masculine kind-of theme that seems to run through about Mongrel Mob members being staunch - rough, tough guys. But they are daddies, they're fathers, they're husbands, they're partners and we focus lots around positive relationships."