Celebrating Rotorua's volunteering community

by Julie Taylor julie.taylor@dailypost.co.nz
Volunteer Awareness Week starts tomorrow and every day during the week the Daily Post will profile a local volunteer. We will then continue to regularly profile Rotorua's unsung heroes.

It takes a special person to give up their own time, without charge, to help others. Rotorua's Joan Stevenson is one of those people.

Like other communities, Rotorua owes much to its many volunteers - people who do everything from putting their life on the line as firefighters to providing transport and administrative assistance or helping people through difficult circumstances.

At 81, Mrs Stevenson could be excused for sitting back and putting her feet up. She retired more than 20 years ago but is still working hard - now as a volunteer at the Parksyde Older Persons' Community Centre.

The Rotorua pensioner started helping in the kitchen at Parksyde shortly after it opened in 2000.

These days you'll find her manning the reception desk twice a week - answering the telephone, checking library books and jigsaws in and out and taking care of general administrative tasks. She also runs a housie group one afternoon a week.

"It is good for company, gets you out of the house and stops you sitting at home," she said.

A widow for more than 35 years, Mrs Stevenson said it would have been easy to retreat into a shell and volunteering made her get out and do something.

"It is a social thing. I get dozens of people in for the housie and it's fun," she said. "It is also satisfying to be able to do something that is of some use to other people." Mrs Stevenson said the community centre in Tarewa Pl was "excellent" because it provided activities, midday meals and a social centre for Rotorua's elderly.

It offers morning and afternoon teas and lunch at its cafeteria as well as activities like craft sessions, bowling, dancing, scrabble, Mah Jong, exercise classes and housie.

* If you know a volunteer who deserves recognition, contact reporter Julie Taylor at the Daily Post on (07) 348 6199 (ext 57015) or at julie.taylor@dailypost.co.nz.