The Bay's Volunteers of the Year

Trustee of the Year Peter Simmons, Volunteer of the Year Sara Hillier-Jones and Youth Volunteer of the Year Sinead Roach. Photo/John Borren

A Tauranga woman who has given 250 hours of her time to the IHC Volunteering Programme was been named Western Bay of Plenty's Volunteer of the Year.

Sara Hillier-Jones was recognised for her contribution at a champagne breakfast this morning.

Her nominator said "Sara demonstrates clear IHC philospohies, valuing all people with intellectual disabilities to have the same rights, needs, aspiration as every other New Zealander".

The award for Trustee of the Year went to Peter Simmons for his "outstanding dedication for more than nine years to Tauranga Budget Advisory Service (TBAS)".

"Peter along with President were instrumental in creating change management for TBAS in 2012 to ensure we had the ability to future proof the service and meet the needs of our community ongoing," his nominator said.

The award for Youth Volunteer of the Year went to Sinead Roach, an "exemplary young person" who has volunteered with Homes of Hope since she was at school.

"Sinead is a thoroughly delightful, professional, committed and reliable volunteer. She has always been willing to contribute in many varied ways to Homes of Hope from caring for children, to helping at fundraisers and events," her nominator said.

EARLIER: Three outstanding volunteers have been selected for recognition out of about 2000 people who give up their time to help 90 community organisations in the Western Bay.

The third annual Eves Realty Excellence Awards for Volunteers will be held this morning to mark International Volunteers Day. At the breakfast the Youth Volunteer of the Year, Trustee Volunteer of the Year and Volunteer of the Year will be announced.

Western Bay of Plenty Volunteers manager Theo Ursum said he had received 15 nominations for the awards from organisations including IHC, Classic Flyers, Tauranga Multicultural Committee, Budget Advice, Red Cross and Riding for the Disabled. "It's really just about people who have done an awesome job in the last 12 months and really upskilled themselves and committed themselves to the volunteer role. One person has volunteered for more than 40 years."

Mr Ursum said volunteers were a big part of the community and vital to many not-for-profit organisations.

"Quite a few rely on volunteers and need that volunteer input, especially now with funding getting more and more difficult to obtain."

Some people volunteered to gain skills, some did so to make use of the skills while others used it as a way of staying connected to the community, he said.

Volunteer Western Bay of Plenty launched a new arm of its website in early September which allows people to see the roles to be filled and contact the organisation directly if they wanted to help. The ease of the process meant more people were getting involved, Mr Ursum said.

"We had 130 volunteers that signed up in the last two months. That's a big increase for us."

Previously the organisation had signed up an average of about 40 new volunteers each month, he said.

Despite the influx of volunteers there were still more than 140 roles on the online database which needed to be filled.