Budgeting help made a difference

Kerry Duncan has been awarded the Queen's Service Medal. Photo / Paul Taylor

Kerry Duncan has made a difference for generations of Napier residents through her 40 years of community service.

The Bay View resident has been providing budget advice since 1972, helped establish the Napier Citizens Advice Bureau in 1986, and in recognition of her services to the community she will receive the Queen's Service Medal.

"I've just done what I've done over the years, and I've enjoyed doing it," Mrs Duncan said.
"You feel you can make a difference, it all helps.

"Every single one of us can do something and make a difference."

When Citizens Advice Bureau began, Mrs Duncan said: "We were just a group ... who wanted to help people."

Still involved, Mrs Duncan has been chairwoman of the committee, held regional and national roles with the Citizens Advice Bureau, and was a member and vice-chairwoman of the national board.

Since 1972 Mrs Duncan was also involved with the Napier Budget Advisory Service, and served as committee chairwoman and treasurer. Now, she and her husband Arthur said they were hearing back from the children, and even grandchildren, of people Mrs Duncan had taught to budget "in the earlier days".

"Now [the children] are achieving financially where their parents didn't - [our] involvement with the whole family taught them," she said.

Her service has come in different forms - from paying a man who had lost his job and had "no reason to get up in the morning" 50c every time he showered until it became habit, or hosting deprived children on the family farm during the school holidays.

"You did more than budgeting because you became very much part of the family," she said.

As well as raising her own family, Mrs Duncan has also been a driver for Red Cross Meals on Wheels for more than 40 years, treasurer of the Disabled Persons Assembly and the Total Mobility Voucher Scheme, and helped establish the Napier Family Planning Association.

She also helped establish Eskview Brownies and was a Brown Owl Brownie leader for 30 years, which she said was her most enjoyable role.