Accolades for community volunteers

Many of Geraldton’s hard-working volunteers came together recently to celebrate the achievements of those who had gone above and beyond the call of duty in serving their community.

The annual 2016 Centacare Volunteer of the Year Awards were held on International Volunteer Day earlier this month to recognise the people and organisations which donate their time and energy to assisting others.

Several major awards were handed out during the evening, including the youth volunteer of the year award, which went to Abby Hennighan of the Geraldton Mission to Seafarers and the community volunteer of the year award, presented to Meredith Sim of Midwest Aged and Community Care.

Trevor and Kerrie Wann accepted the volunteer organisation of the year award on behalf of the Geraldton Scout Group, while Isabel Andreassen was awarded the lifetime community volunteer of the year award for her many years of service to the Geraldton Hospital Auxiliary.

Centacare community volunteer service co-ordinator Kristy Geyson said the entries were of an extremely high calibre.

“This year the number of nominations was slightly down on previous years, however, the judges still had great difficulty choosing the winners as there were a number of very worthy recipients,” she said.

“It was great to see some new names and groups being recognised that haven’t been included in the past.”

This year the celebration also played host to a separate set of awards, presented by the Department of Fire and Emergency Services.

Mrs Geyson said Centacare was pleased to acknowledge the work of emergency service volunteers.

“We were delighted to also host the DFES Volunteer Fire Fighters presentations of their national and State medals,” she said.

“Some volunteer fire fighters weren’t able to make it, as they were actually out fighting a fire at the time.”

For information about the awards and the winners, visit centacaregeraldton.org.au.