Recipients of the Sumner Ferrymead Foundation’s Scholarships & Awards Programme, and the Community Grants Programme were recognised on Friday night at the Foundation’s Awards Evening.
This is the fourth year of the Scholarships & Awards Programme, and once again there were some outstanding candidates. Sumner Ferrymead Foundation Trustee, John Christensen, has been involved with the programme since its inception. “Each year we short list the candidates, interview the shortlist and then have a lively discussion as to who will be the recipient for each Scholarship or Award. Whilst its time-consuming and challenging to identify the successful recipient, its an incredibly rewarding process to go through as there as some fantastic young people out there.
The Scholarships & Awards programme is sponsored by locals – both individuals and businesses – so it’s great to be able to introduce their recipients to the sponsor of the award at the evening, so that they too can see the calibre of the recipients. A Sumner resident who sponsors the Environment Award, said sponsoring an award is a great way to put something back into your local community. “I love walking over the Port Hills so the Environment Award ticks both the ‘greening NZ’ and the ‘local community’ boxes for me. I’d encourage anyone to support these awards when reviewing which registered charities to support. In my case it’s great to know and see how your donation is being used locally. Plus, you get to meet the people who are doing the hard work to make our community a better place to work, live and play, and to say thank you to them.
This year the Sumner Ferrymead Foundation also provided five community grants to celebrate the Foundation’s support the local community for 30 years. Andrew Clark, a trustee of the Foundation said providing $30,000 in community grants was a great way to mark 30 years of service. “We were pleased with the number and quality of the applications from groups, clubs and organisations from within the catchment area – from Taylors Mistake through to Heathcote and around to Brookhaven. “In an ideal world we’d love to offer the community grants each year if we could find sponsors in the same way we do for the Scholarships & Awards Programme. We’ve already had one expression of interest following the awards evening but we need a few more for this to be viable.” If you are interested in sponsoring a community grant please contact the Sumner Ferrymead Foundation via their website, or Andrew directly on 027 203 9379.