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The 46 volunteers behind Palmerston North’s Street Van are key not only to the van the organisation is named after, but also a wealth of other programmes including food parcel distribution, parent support groups, a grandparent programme, helping those with drug addictions, providing short and long term emergency accommodation, and assisting with drug and alcohol programmes in schools. The work they do not only positively impacts on the people they assist directly today, but has generational benefits that will be realised by the community decades into the future.
We all like to call ourselves “Kiwis”, but real life Kiwis in and around Te Puke in the Bay of Plenty rely heavily on volunteers from the TrustPower Community Award winning Otanewainuki Kiwi Trust, for survival.
Children making their way to school, recreational users and sports event competitors have all benefited from the efforts and achievements of the volunteers who make up National Community Awards runner up Bike Taupo.
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The word sustainability has become an intrinsic part of government and business communications over recent years. More recently it has become a focus for the broader community driven by a strong media focus and an increasing awareness about the issue of climate change.
While the key focus of sustainability may have changed recently, the concept is far from new for TrustPower, even in areas such as sponsorship and community support and involvement.
A wonderful example of a community relations initiative that is truly sustainable is TrustPower’s Community Awards programme.
The programme began 15 years ago in the Western Bay of Plenty, in response to a sponsorship proposal to TrustPower by the then Western Bay Mayor Joan Keheley. Today, TrustPower is involved directly in recognising the efforts and achievements of voluntary organisations in 23 regions, and indirectly in a further six regions sponsored by organisations that have a relationship with TrustPower’s largest shareholder, Infratil.
To be truly sustainable, sponsorships not only have to stand the test of time, but they have to be cost effective, impart direct benefits to those directly involved, and indirectly, benefit the wider community. All of TrustPower’s 23 Community Awards are run in partnership with local councils, which benefit from having more than just an opportunity to recognise those carrying out good works in their communities. As one mayor succinctly put it, “these people aren’t the usual suspects – they make our communities a better place to live, work and bring up our children, but because they just get on doing things and rarely complain, we seldom have the opportunity to connect with them.”
From a volunteer’s perspective, the awards provide a great opportunity to network with like minded people, find out what others are up to, and learn new “tricks of the volunteer trade”. For those lucky enough to receive an award (there were more than 260 in 2007 alone), the recognition itself is worth more than the cheque that accompanies it.
As the wife of one volunteer said recently, at TrustPower’s National Awards, “My husband has devoted most of his life to voluntary work, and has achieved a great deal. But it was not until the organisation he founded won our regional Community Award six years ago, that he got the credibility, in some eyes, that he needed to engender the support required to take things further. Since then it has been all one way – that recognition has led to success upon success, and he and the community are much richer for that”.
In March 2008, peers from other regions, and an independent panel of judges met to hear presentations and decide which voluntary organisation deserved to become the National Community Award winner for 2007. They overwhelmingly chose the Palmerston North Street Van, whose name only reflects a fraction of what its volunteers do. The Street Van volunteers’ work not only benefits individuals and the community today, but will impact positively upon generations to come. Gaining the funding needed to carry out their work will hopefully become easier now that Street Van can note on its “CV” the winning of the TrustPower National Community Award, recognition that is so richly deserved.
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