The Hits breakfast hosts Jono and Ben presenting the Coke Good Buggers award to Christina and Richard Ongle. From left: Jono Pryor, Richard and Christina Ongle, Ben Boyce. Photo / Tom Rowland
The Hits breakfast hosts Jono and Ben presenting the Coke Good Buggers award to Christina and Richard Ongle. From left: Jono Pryor, Richard and Christina Ongle, Ben Boyce. Photo / Tom Rowland
Tokoroa, the South Waikato town that often gets a bad rap, has been inspired by the work of local couple Christina and Richard Ogle whose tireless effort with The Eclipse Project to help the local youth was rewarded this week with a surprise visit from The Hits breakfast hosts Jonoand Ben.
Over 100 people poured into the Eclipse youth centre to celebrate Christina and Richard's work with the Eclipse Project, which is a youth mentoring service offering different programmes in Tokoroa.
Their mission is to effect positive influence to encourage change within the lives of rangatahi by helping to prepare them for their future.
Christina said the project started when a group of boys stole their son's bike at the gym.
"We originally started a gym, but at the time a couple of boys decided they were going to steal my son's bike," Christina said.
Tokoroa High School students were in attendance at Eclipse youth centre to welcome Jono and Ben. Photo / Tom Rowland
"I plastered that all over Facebook and we tracked them down and so my husband gave them the option that they either come to training or we would go to the police.
"They decided to go with the training, and from there we realised what was lacking with the youth in Tokoroa was that they didn't really have a support network, so that stirred up something in our hearts to help them."
At the Eclipse Project the youth learn both real life skills while also working on fitness and sports such as kickboxing. They also learn skills around hunting and gathering.
"At one point myself and my husband decided to go on holiday to Thailand and we wanted to take some of the youth over to do some kickboxing training, to do that we needed to fundraise and the community came out to get us to our target," Christina said.
"We did things like painting houses and tidying gardens up. We taught them skills in concreting and people heard about us through our fundraising jobs and asked us for help with other community initiatives."
Christina said Tokoroa's community isn't as bad as some of New Zealand seem to think.
"We are walking down the street and feeding the homeless, but people just immediately think that these boys are walking down the street looking for a fight. It is an eye opener and you don't tend to see it until you're in it."
The visit by The Hits breakfast hosts Jono & Ben was down to Coca-Cola giving people the chance to give a shout out to their mates on national TV through an epic new ad campaign set to feature Kiwis from across New Zealand.
To celebrate this campaign, Coke partnered with Jono & Ben from The Hits Breakfast to challenge Kiwis to do a shout out for a 'Good Bugger' they know.
Together, they sought to find Kiwis right across Aotearoa, to celebrate the awesome impact they've made in their communities.
Nominated by Sarah Winikerei, Jono and Ben chose Tokoroa couple Christina and Richard because as Sarah describes it "they are two incredibly selfless people, with the biggest hearts who give and give".
