What an incredible afternoon celebrating the volunteers of Ōtautahi Christchurch and surrounding Districts, at our 2024 Volunteer Recognition Awards! Congratulations to the 52 Award recipients for their incredible Mahi!
Special thanks goes to:
Mayor Phil Mauger and Christchurch City Council for supporting our event;
Mandy Kennedy, CEO of Bone Marrow Cancer Trust, Ranui House - our wonderful Guest Speaker;
Luka Willems - our delightful and very entertaining StarJam performer;
Tina Cooper - thte designer and creator of our beautiful Harakeke Clusters;
Mandy Caldwell - our amazing photographer!
There was a buzz in the air on 8th June, World Wide Knit in Public Day, as our wonderful micro-volunteers got together for Knit for Purpose! We were joined by Emily from Star Media who was as delighted as we were to see so many volunteers coming together Make Their Mahi Have Meaning, resulting in 1,319 knitted or crocheted squares, and 24 finished blankets! Thank you to everyone who participated, we have been blown away once again by your incredible work! ❤️
What an amazing day to get be out and about painting a mural to 'shout out' to the mahi aroha of our environment volunteers. Volunteering Canterbury worked alongside Climate Action Campus, Ōtautahi and the CCC Graffiti Artist Mentor programme to identify a wall and an artist - Josh Montogomery #drowsydesign - who prepped the wall. Then we invited some civic leaders from across Otautahi Christchurch to come and put the finishing touches! Thanks to Crs Sara Templeton, Tyrone Fields, Yani Johanson, Andrei Moore and Deputy Mayor Pauline Cotter and local MPs, Tracey McLellan, Reuben Davidson, Dr Duncan Webb and Megan Woods for joining us!
Wow! April was has been a HUGE one for Group Volunteering! We have had teams from Spark, Open Polytechnic, Loburn School, Ethicon, Ben & Jerry's, and Te Tahi Youth volunteering with community groups including 0800 Hungry, Kaiapoi Food Forest, Edible Canterbury, Riverlution, Kairos Food Rescue and TechMate! Young and old, these awesome teams packed food parcels, planted vegetables, weeded and mulched around trees, and reassembled donated laptops. What a mammoth effort from everyone involved – HUGE thanks to these amazing teams
Two fabulous teams went out this month in Group Volunteering Programme. First up was a lovely team of Teachers from Te Rito Maioha Early Childhood NZ, who spent the day at 0800 Hungry, preparing food packs for distribution to those in need in the community. On the same day, a business group from Plexure Ltd spent a day with Kairos Food Rescue, preparing and distributing food packs. And finally, a student group from the University of Canterbury ‘Strengthening Communities Through Social Innovation’ course, spent an afternoon with Edible Canterbury in the city.