Celebrating our Wellington Airport Regional Community Awards!

We here at Te Whare Hapori o ngā Puna Waiora / Newtown Community Centre are absolutely blown away and overjoyed to win both the Health & Wellbeing and the Supreme Awards at the Wellington Airport Regional Community Awards for Wellington City! This is such an awesome spotlight on the amazing mahi happening in our communities here in Newtown – and we couldn’t do what we do without everyone around us, from our volunteers to the groups who provide services in our space. These two awards seriously belong to the entire community around us.

So much of what we do wouldn’t be possible without all our amazing volunteers. Our talented Quick Kai and Free Soup Friday teams: Anahid, George, Tomi, Rex, Tina, Peter and Oliver – all led by our kitchen legend, Andy! Without fail, they have been cooking up a storm in our kitchen week after week – making nourishing Quick Kai meals and serving tasty soups for anyone and everyone to enjoy on Fridays. A big shout out to our general volunteers, Pāyal, Guru Dev, Christian, Jess and Baz who do so much for us, helping with the day-to-day mahi of our whare hapori / community centre. And Rachel and Dianne who volunteer to make our Death Café events possible. And not to forget all our other volunteers, past and present, who have done their part to make this place what it is. Whether it’s helping to facilitate events, or delivering copies of the Newtown News, or doing the dishes after soup, thank you for your mahi - this award is yours too!

Then there’s the Smart Newtown team, coordinated and supported by the wonderful Maddy and Andy, who provide free access to computers, internet, printing, tech classes and help. This is made possible by our friendly and helpful Smart Newtown volunteers: Dave, Mila, Siththy Ishfa, Aleks, Kevin, Talha, Shuo, Ashis and Michael. Right next door to Smart Newtown we host the JP drop-in. A huge mihi to all our lovely JP’s, Deborah, Noeline, George, Bice, Sue, Glen-Marie, Eileen and Tricia, who offer such an important service.

The Community Centre is proud to be the home of the Wellington Timebank, coordinated previously by Rowena and now by Emma and overseen by the Steering Committee: Shelali, Edu Bernadette, Marion and Lisa. All 1029 of our Timebankers do such great work in our communities – trading their time and skills to help each other and many local groups.

We also have all our Newtown Tool Library volunteers, Joel, Graham, Maia, RJ, Erin, Daniil, Andrea, Eoin, Paul, Nuala, David, Brett, Kain, Tana, Sam, Erland and more! These passionate volunteers organise the collection of tools, manage the lending, tag and test electronics and bring their handy knowledge of tools and repairs to this cool project, helping to make tools accessible to those who need them!

In thanking all our volunteers, we can’t forget our board members, Jane, Paul, Kim, Steph, and Curtis. And a special mention of Tom Law, our previous chair for the past 27years, and Peter Frater, who’s amazing guidance helped make the theatre what itis! The board’s leadership is invaluable to the community centre, and they do the hard mahi of keeping the rest of us in check!

Big props need to be given to Eryn and Ellie – our previous co-managers who did the hard-yards, working tirelessly over the past 9 and 7 years to make Newtown Community Centre what it is today. They are the legends who helped set up so many of our core services that we provide today. They very much deserve to be showered in all the accolades for their hard work. Anna and Edie, the new General Manager and Assistant Manager, feel very lucky to be riding on the coattails of Eryn and Ellie’s achievements and we are striving to keep up the good work!

Then, there’s Charlie, our stellar Kaiwhakahaere Kiripaepae / Reception Admin Assistant, who seriously keeps the place functioning. She’s a friendly face at our reception, a font of knowledge and manages the many many bookings! Another key staff member who keeps everything running is Phil, our Financial Officer who makes sure we keep paying the bills – we’d be up to our ears in paperwork without him!

Our community centre doesn’t exist in a vacuum, and we have so many other great community groups propping us up too! We’re proud to support our Activist in Residence, Frances of Free Fares NZ, who is fighting for free public transport for under-25s, students, Community Service Card holders and Total Mobility Card holders and their support people – mahi that benefits so many people and they’ve already succeeded in achieving half-price fares for Community Service Card holders! Kaibosh and Kaicycle are both massive supports by donating kai for our Community Fridge, Quick Kai and Free Soup Friday. And thank you to Trinity Union Church who regularly donate to support Free Soup Friday.

We also need to thank our friends at Community Law, Tū Ora, Know Your Stuff, Narcotics Anonymous, Addictive Eaters Anonymous, Emerge Aotearoa, Citizens Advice Bureau & Wellington City Mission for the important support services they provide! Plus all the local cafes and businesses that support us, like Baobab Cafe, New Day, Opportunity for Animals, New World Newtown, Peoples Coffee, Wilsons Funeral Home and Pōneke Construction! We owe a massive a thank you to the Wellington City Council and all our funders, COGS, Lottery Grants Board, TG Macarthy Trust, and Grassroots Trust (shout out to Julie and Hayley who run the Tai Chi classes here!)

This achievement also deserves to be shared with all the other winners and runner ups for the awards. There are so many organisations and groups doing crucial mahi around Wellington City, and we are only one patch in the enormous quilt of services wrapping around our communities. So, all the other finalists deserve a massive mihi and acknowledgement for everything they do. Thank you, Wellington Airport Regional Community Awards for putting a spotlight on the hard work and services of our fellow finalists.

But most of all, our thanks and congratulations are owed to the people of Newtown. Our vibrant suburb is made up of so many wonderful people who come together to share kai, help each other out and make our whare hapori the hub of aroha, joy and care that it is. Congrats on the win, Newtown!