Volunteers - get your swag on

Kathlene Cook is encouraging heaps of people to enter the 2016 Trustpower Energy Direct Whanganui District Community Awards. The community relations representative for the company was in Whanganui on Wednesday to drum up entries for the awards which are open now.

There's no need to be humble.

Trustpower Energy Direct wants volunteers to get their swag on and enter the TrustPower Community Awards now.

Entries close August 19 and Trustpower community relations representative Kathlene Cook said this year they would like to see lots of entries in the Youth Spirit Award for year 13 students.

"We'd like every school to have an entry.

"This is not for the top academic student or sportsperson but the volunteer round the school who runs the charities or looks after the score board at a game.

"Someone who has a really strong school community heart."

Volunteers can enter by answering three questions on a form available at trustpower.co.nz/communityawards.

"It's not the time to be too humble" she said.

"Pretty much anything cool happening in the community is done by volunteers.

"Find someone who can tell your story, or it could just be bullet points. You may have lots of things going on but maybe highlight a special project, and go into depth on that."

Kathlene says one entry from another town in New Zealand was a ukulele group.

"They pop up all over the place with a bit of liveliness, they are at almost every community gathering.

"They are tiny, just eight people but they have that commitment and people appreciate it."

The Whanganui awards night will be in October. They are decided by Trustpower, Whanganui District Council and "key people in the community who know the context as well."

The awards are in their fourth year and there are five categories: heritage and environment, health and wellbeing, arts and culture, sport and leisure and education and child/youth development.