Community Citizen of the Year Award Nominee Profiles Part 2

Published on Thursday, 19 January 2023 at 4:07:59 PM

The Auspire 2023 Community Citizen of the Year Awards will be announced on Thursday 26th January at Bilya Koort Boodja from 10am. There are four categories, Community Citizen, Community Citizen Youth, Community Citizen Senior and Group or Event.

It is a fantastic opportunity to acknowledge the contribution of so many dedicated individuals within the Shire of Northam and highlight the importance of the work they do to better our community.

In recognition of this great work we would like to give you a snap shot of the work they do within the community as described by the people who nominated. Below is the remainder of our nominees for 2023.

Lisa is inclusive, she doesn't care if you're young or old, new to town or what your background is, she supports all community groups equally, including the playgroup and the local craft group. Lisa is humble and modest and works quietly in the background to make our town a beautiful place.

Tracey Potroz

Tracey helps the community of Wundowie and surrounds by gifting fruit, vegies, bread and other pantry staples when available every week from her house. There is over 20 families that this helps each week.

She also packages up bread etc. and delivers to elderly residents around Wundowie if they cannot come to her. She does this while being a Mum to many and Grandmother to more!

Tracey enhances people's lives by reducing their weekly spend on groceries, but also promotes reducing food waste, as the groceries that she gifts would otherwise end up in landfill. By visiting the elderly residents weekly they would feel connected and part of our community by having regular visits to their homes.

Local people have spread the word through social media and word of mouth to further reach people that may be in need of a few groceries to help them out. She also helps the local school and sporting organisations if there is an event they can use bread or buns etc. for, this is recognised and appreciated greatly by our local community and surrounding areas.

Being an approachable and friendly person she also brightens peoples day when they come to collect what they need, by supplying this help to the community it has also encouraged others to share if they have excess available to help others.

Mary Dyer, Lyn Whitbread, Gloria Doroszenko

 

Mary, Gloria and Lyn are extremely valuable volunteers for the not-for-profit charity Comfort Quilts Against Cancer Inc. based in Northam.

 

They works tirelessly to assist in the production of the quilts that are made by the charity and are sent to cancer sufferers all over Australia.

 

Their responsibilities include: Creating the quilt fabric packs used by the volunteers to create the quilts, office administration including writing thank-you messages to the donors to the charity, coordinating the colour coding and storage of fabrics for the quilts, photographing completed quilts for social media, cataloging the quilts, coordinating the final production of the completed quilts, and preparing the quilts for distribution.

 

Most recently Mary, Gloria and Lyn have worked substantially more additional volunteer hours above and beyond there normal commitment, to assist in the relocation of the Comfort Quilts workshop to a larger premises. This was an enormous undertaking and there contribution was invaluable in making the move a success. The relocation will enable Comfort quilts to make and deliver a much higher number of quilt care packages to cancer sufferers across Australia.

 

They all work tirelessly to improve the wellbeing of the nominated cancer sufferers who are recipients of our quilts, while also providing support to all the volunteers based in Northam.

STRYKA Fight Team

 

STRYKA fight team provide a safe place for our youth to participate in sport at no cost to their members. Coaches all volunteer their time.

 

All outlying costs are supported through sponsorship from local businesses which also provides advertising for these local businesses.

Coaches and members provide community work for local pensioners in lieu of fees.

 

Stryka aim to provide emotional and physical growth to the underprivileged youth within the local community. Our members assist with firewood cutting and deliveries and odd jobs to local pensioners at no cost. This in turn gives youth the opportunity to bond with likeminded individuals, and gain a sense of achievement and character development.

STRYKA has recently expanded into Albany WA, giving the youth in another area of WA opportunity to share in the same experiences as the Northam team.

Brendon Rutter

Brendon is a pillar of strength in our community. Until recently he was the CESM (Community Emergency Services Manager) for the Central Wheatbelt and he always goes beyond the call of duty. Brendon volunteers a lot of his time to support volunteers in their training and promotes inclusion on every level. He is always available if we need to talk.

 

Brendon is always volunteering his time to support all volunteering in the Central Wheatbelt. He spends many unpaid hours listening to all our woes, encouraging us to attend training courses and meetings and he is almost always available when we need to run a campaign or inhouse training.

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