KEY POINTS:
Frank Bunce tried living in St Heliers for a while. It wasn't him - he missed the graffiti, the ethnic mix and the grit of South Auckland.
He's back living in Papatoetoe and his investment in South Auckland has gone beyond property. Bunce has given his soul to
the city of his birth, having quit his job to work for the Manukau Community Foundation.
The 58-test All Black has done a bit of this and a bit of that since he quit playing in 1998.
He's tried coaching. He's done some media work and was most recently employed by Mainfreight.
A few years ago he became a trustee on the board of the Manukau Community Foundation - a charitable trust that aims to promote philanthropic capital investment.
Last year, the chief executive suggested he apply to the Vodafone World of Difference programme which pays the salary of up to six people each year so they can work for 12 months in youth-related causes.
Bunce was accepted and now sees charitable work as his calling. "I'd like to stay in this line of work and to be involved in mentoring," says Bunce. "I'd like to be involved in stopping people from getting into trouble. To get in a bit earlier and try to prevent things rather than cure them."
Bunce's desire to stay involved stems from the realisation that in 12 months, he can only scratch the surface. If he were to dip in and out, what would he really have achieved?
The troubled youth of South Auckland are not going to be sent down the path to righteousness in 12 months. Bunce knows that and he feels that if he is really going to make a difference, he's going to have to commit for the long haul.
"I go and tell my story and tell the kids what else is out there for them," he says. "It is easy to go back to sport because there is so much talent in South Auckland.
"I tell them about Jonah Lomu, Ruben Wiki, Joe Rokocoko, Keven Mealamu - people who have come from exactly the same place where they are sitting now.
"When I'm talking to them they are all sitting there listening and it seems to be going in. But when I leave... I'm not so sure. I don't have the time to commit now. You have to be in there for the long-term and when you commit to that, you get the results."
As a former All Black, Bunce has currency. He uses his sporting background and the success of other South Auckland athletes as a mechanism to open doors, to get kids to listen and see sport as a vehicle for self-improvement.
But he wants to make them aware of more than just the sporting landscape. Essentially, he sees his mission as making the young people of his community aware of all the opportunities that exist.
Having grown up in South Auckland, he knows how easy it is to feel hemmed in, to feel that opportunity doesn't exist beyond the locality.
Bunce became aware of just how much was out there when he went on tour with his Manukau rugby club as a teenager. Sitting on a beach in Hawaii on the way home, his coach at the time, in language littered with expletives, informed Bunce and his team-mates, "this is what you lot could have if you all stop mucking around and concentrate on your rugby".
That struck a chord with Bunce and rugby did indeed prove to be his ticket to a better life. But he knows that sport will not tick the box for everyone.
And he has also seen in the last six months that one of the biggest problems for youth in South Auckland is the lack of positive male role models.
Too many youngsters are able to drift at an early age because they don't have guidance from their fathers or father figures. If they have already strayed towards illicit pursuits or into the arms of a gang, then sport is not going to be able to save them.
That's why Bunce wants to become an influence in people's lives at an earlier age. Catch them before they fall into bad company.
"I am leaning towards a role where I can help make people better parents, better families," says Bunce.
"I was invited by a Youth Court judge to sit there one day. That was an eye-opener. There were a couple of fathers there but it was mainly the defendants coming in with their mothers.
"Who knows where the fathers are? I ask all the time. Some fathers don't want anything to do with their kids. Sometimes the father is at home but he's not interested for all sorts of reasons.
"Without a father figure, some kids look to gangs. They look to their friends and they head the wrong way. You hang around with your mates and if you are part of a group, it gets easy for the gangs to recruit."
Interestingly, Bunce's desire to stay involved has not stemmed from the volumes of errant and wayward youth he has encountered in the last six months.
From a distance, the escalation of violent crime in South Auckland promotes the idea Manukau is a city without hope, that the core is too rotten to be salvaged.
Bunce, though, says his experience has been entirely different. He's seen inspiring stories of young people overcoming adversity. He's seen people turn their lives around with the help of the Community Foundation and it's the positives not the negatives that have woken him to the role he could play.
It has also made him aware of the need to focus on more than just the misguided.
"Something I have learned from this experience is that there is not a hell of a lot out there for kids who are good, who don't have problems," he says. "Everyone throws money at the bad kids to try to bring them back while the kids who deserve everything get nothing."
Bunce was an All Black legend. What he did on the field, though, was never as inspiring as what he is doing now.
