Volunteering

For the past 32 years I have been involved in the sport of Athletics. For nearly all of that time I have been involved in Little Athletics the organisation focusing on athletics for 5-16 year old’s. I started off as an athlete participating each week when I was younger and then moving on to Senior athletics competing at National level. Whilst my time as an athlete in Little Athletics may have been over, my involvement continued with the local club where I started helping out as a committee member, coach and official. Overtime, this involvement has progressed to so much more than my local club. For eight years I served as a zone co-ordinator looking after local clubs from Glenbrook in the east out to Mudgee on the central tablelands of NSW. In 2018, I was elected to the board of Little Athletics NSW where I currently am they chair of the Finance & Audit committee and company secretary. Even though my time on the board takes up a lot of time I still spend a lot of time officiating and most weekends you will see me at one meet or another either with a starting gun in my hand or at the other end of the track looking after photo finish.

This was my first time Volunteering and I was inspired by our team at Fujitsu General to participate in the annual landcare day at Whitehaven Reserve in Quakers Hill.

What looked like an enormous task in the beginning removing weeds from the native grasses in the reserve turned out to be an amazing accomplishment thanks to the teams participation and after 3 hours we filled the councils entire truck with multiple bags of weeds. 

The area we cleared was really noticeable at the end, giving us peace of mind knowing the native plants and grasses now have a better chance to thrive. The local council ranger also spent time showing us how to harvest seeds from native trees which were collected by us and placed in bags to the council nursery.

I personally got a lot out of the day, working as a team seeing what we can achieve as a group  and working with the community and council to give back our time to give nature a chance felt both rewarding and empowering!

We at times take so many things for granted until you volunteer your time to a good cause and see how some people are in so much need and experience difficulties/hardship in life. There are people living in tents alongside the Hawkesbury river getting by day by day and depending on the conditions move on a regular basis. I could only imagine how difficult each day could get, especially on hot or cold days, not forgetting storms and constant rain. This shouldn’t be happening!

My highlight was I could contribute a very small part of my time in assisting with our FGA team in organising hampers and re packing a refrigerated container to make their lives easier when organising food for the needy. Infact a huge amount of work was done by our team emptying the massive freezer, sorting, repacking and rotating stock and packing.

 Thank you FGA for giving me and the team the opportunity to assist such a worthy cause! 

 Team Volunteering Day at Anglicare

Team visited Anglicare in Villawood to make a difference to those who will struggle over Christmas. Toys and Tucker pretty much is as it says. Toys for kids who would otherwise miss out and tucker for families who would otherwise not be eating on Christmas Day.  

The Toys group separated all the toys by age and by gender with a main and secondary toy as well as fillers included for the hampers. They ended up with a good mix of a main toy with many other types and sizes. The majority of the time was spent sorting to make it easier for the hampers to be made. 

The Food group made sure there was a balanced diet box including all the staples such as long life milk, beans and rice to ensure the longevity was there for after Christmas Day. Once the hampers were made they were put on pallets and then removed making way for more space. All hampers made on this day were for the Mt Druitt area. 

Morning tea was around 10am where our legends got to speak to other legend volunteers. They were first thought to be Anglicare staff but they were in fact just generous and lovely people who were there to also make a difference. 

Mathew Weaver

 Volunteering at Victoria Parklands South Australia

Our team completed our volunteer day at the southern end of the Victoria Park parklands. The day was a huge success and was very rewarding. Overall we collected 36 kilograms of rubbish between the 4 of us. The most common items were microplastics, cigarette butts, plastic bags, straws and wrappers. The experience was productive knowing that our efforts from the day contributed to cleaning the parklands used by the greater community and wildlife. Returning the parklands to a cleaner state, and giving back through sharing our time and efforts makes volunteering on such projects rewarding for all involved. 

Last December, I spent a day volunteering for a great Charity “Brisbane Basket Brigade” who supports local communities in need by supplying food, Christmas decorations and gifts. I participated in delivering food door to door with my manager Dana. We collected food baskets from the packing/dispatch point in Cannon Hill Anglican College to deliver to different locations within Brisbane. Finding some of the units was a bit of a challenge as they lacked unit numbers (felt for postman 😊) but we managed to track them down. The moment we handed the food baskets to the receiver, the amount of appreciation we received from the people and the smile on their face, melted our heart. It was an enjoyable and rewarding experience!!  Due to busy lifestyles, at times we can stop appreciating what we have and forget how we can experience happiness from helping others.  A happiness that is priceless!!!

Nasreen