Volunteers give so much to help their community thrive

There is an absolutely amazing group of people in our society who contribute so much and they are called ‘‘volunteers’’.

It would be extremely hard to put a monetary figure on what this means to NZ in total but no doubt it would be in the hundreds of millions of dollars annually.

So much of what we all do is taken for granted and somehow hidden in the backwaters but not for any other reason than we do it automatically and don’t think twice about it.

There is an appropriate saying for volunteers which is so true, ‘‘if you want something done ask a busy person’’.

For volunteers play a huge role behind the scenes, not for glory but we see something needs doing so by joining forces with others we can ‘‘move mountains’’ as the saying goes.

This is no more true than in Central Taranaki as I believe it is ingrained in our DNA.

I have written about our early pioneers previously, but if you cast your mind back to the 1870s onwards when Stratford was first settled, the isolation from other settlements was horrendous. So the question confronting them was, how do we survive?

You did exactly what we still do today by working and pulling together to achieve a better outcome for our communities.

We simply can’t and shouldn’t rely on central or local government to take us from the cradle to the grave as the saying goes, so as volunteers we share some of this responsibility be it ‘‘help thy neighbour’’ or a friend.

Can we imagine what it might be like without volunteers?

Then we have this large group of people who come to the fore during a time of adversity for individuals or families, who go online to ‘‘Give a Little’’ where thousands of folk each give a few dollars, so surely they are volunteers but probably the same folk who are involved in their local organisation.

Our Stratford District Council for some time now has been collating the list of local organisations in our district and Mayor Neil Volzke says this presently stands at 158 which is quite staggering for a community of under 10,000 residents.

So many of these folk he says will be involved with several of these groups which certainly helps broaden one’s knowledge and appreciation of other points of view.

Mayor Ross Dunlop of STDC comments the following – ‘‘Volunteering is very strong in South Taranaki with over 25 per cent of our population involved in some sort of volunteer work which compares with the national figure of only about 11 per cent’’.

Our community would struggle to function if so many good people didn’t put their hands up to make our community a better place.

And New Plymouth Mayor Neil Holdom says: ‘‘Volunteers are often the hidden powerhouse within our communities enabling everything from sports and recreational activities, to social services, events, charity fundraising and the list goes on.’’

So as you can see there are hundreds of groups and organisations in our province and who would know better than our mayors.

With no offence to anyone I would like to mention four as an example.

Positive Aging was formed in Stratford some 16 years ago and

Can we imagine what it might be like without volunteers?

around the same time in New Plymouth when both organisations brought together many of their community orientated groups to meet the needs of our more senior folk by discussing subjects of mutual interest.

Then soon after, through Positive Aging we formed a health group called The Health of the Older Persons Reference Group who meet regularly to discuss and react to the needs and provision of health services to a wide range of Taranaki folk.

We operate through the TDHB who provide secretarial services for us but more importantly as a whole group of volunteers we get to discuss health issues that affect us all.

Also in Stratford there is a group of 17 volunteers all members of the Stratford Community Patrol who monitor the extensive video surveillance around our CBD to watch for any criminal elements.

But probably the biggest single group of volunteers in Taranaki support Hospice Taranaki.

Kevin Nielsen the retiring CEO recently said ‘‘Where would we be without the 600 volunteers?’’

Let us all feel proud of all our Taranaki volunteers.