Community care groups are often not heard, just like the dawn chorus. They just go about their business getting the job done and enjoying the fruits of their collective endeavours, except once a year when 24 of these living, giving groups attend the Trustpower National Community Awards weekend - and I was fortunate to be part of one of them.
Finalists from 24 communities up and down the country gather to tell their stories and each one of them was worthy of taking home the winner's trophy.
Each one of them, including Age Concern from Tauranga and Pirirakau Incorporated Society representing the Western Bay, had done the hard yards to make something special happen in their own back yards.
For me these volunteers are the backbone of any community and often they are overlooked.
There are 1.2 million volunteers in New Zealand, including 75 per cent of every fire brigade.
While we salute the high-profile and often praised society headliners of the volunteer world, the grass-roots give-it-all-a-go-for-nothing-more-than-a-thank-you brigade, are often overlooked.
But not so over the weekend at Waitangi when the 24 communities of volunteers represented at the Trust Power Awards stood up and saluted one another.
Perhaps we need to "crouch 'n' hold" and learn a little more about what our volunteer groups do for our communities. I for one didn't really understand how deep this vein of volunteers had been feeding the lifeblood of our communities.
Even less understood and often overlooked is the "social capital" created by that effort. For my two bobs' worth of working for nothing, it is social capital that determines the fabric of a community.
Where would we be without our volunteer brigades, community care groups and whanau collectives?
The answer can be found easily on the foreshores of our beaches after Rena, or further south the broken heart and bent-out-of-shape buildings of Christchurch.
Closer to home our women's refuges, support centres, food banks, marae and iwi collectives would be lost without the army of volunteers who work their magic and engender the social capital of our communities.
Maybe we in the media have a bigger part to play by making every effort to sing their praises and turn the perception around that good news doesn't sell newspapers. Pride is a powerful perception when woven into the korowai of a community.
It has nothing to do with being whakahihi, but everything to do with wanting the best for our tamariki and the world they will inherit on our behalf.
Too many times we take a cynical view of corporate sponsorship and say, "It's a tick off not a tautoko."
Too many times we say, "What's the point in getting involved as a volunteer?" or, "What difference can I make?"
Heaps - if you ask the silence of the dawn chorus in the Kaimais.
Many answers to our back-yard challenges can be found in the kaupapa of the 24 volunteer groups at the TrustPower Community Awards. It is these community volunteer groups who have the "copapa" to bring back the dawn chorus.
If the currency of success in our communities and around our corporate boardroom tables could be measured by the social capital created by our volunteer groups - as it was at the weekend - then the legacy we leave tomorrow's tamariki has just grown 24 times what it is today.
broblack@xtra.co.nz
