Tawa teenager wins award at Parliament

A Tawa teenager and Kiwi Community Assistance volunteer has been awarded a 2016 Youth Week Award.

Jess hill, 15, was presented the award by Youth Minister, Nikki Kaye.

The award ceremony held at Parliament recognised young volunteers from across the country.  There were more than 160 award nominees and 45 recipients.

Jess Hill was one of five recipients to win an award in the Giving Back category.

Kaye said the Youth Awards recognised young people who had made outstanding contributions to their communities, as well as people who had supported or championed young people.

Jess started volunteering at Kiwi Community Assistance (KCA) late last January as she needed 100 hours of community service for her St John’s Youth, Grand Prior Badge.

KCA is a not-for-profit organisation that acts as a distribution hub for community groups, sourcing food, clothing and household goods for people in need.

Co-founders, Phil Davies and Tracy Wellington nominated Jess for the award to recognise the commitment from someone so young.

Jess said her volunteer work had become less about the hours and more about helping others.

“I’m currently sitting at 50 and half hours of community service for KCA,” she said.

As KCA’s Food Depot Coordinator, Jess compiled food parcels and trained new volunteers to make up the parcels.

She said it could take anywhere from one to two hours to make up a food parcel depending on the time of year.

“In the winter the amount of stock we get slows down (usually) but in summer and at the moment, I’m spending around two hours making up food parcels.”

Jess said there are two types of food parcels. The first is for people involved in budgeting through agencies and the second bulk food parcels distributed to activity centres, soup kitchens, schools, food banks and food rescue organisations throughout the Wellington region.

“I must take a picture of every box, which is KCA’s way of documenting everything as proof of where the rescued food is going.

“After all the boxes are made up I upload these pictures onto KCA’s Facebook page,” said Jess.

In addition to the many hours she had volunteered Jess now had her award to add to her achievements.

Jess said winning the award was “amazing” and she felt very privileged

At the ceremony Jess said she met Peter Dunne, the MP for her electorate and  they spoke about her award.

“The next best thing about the award ceremony was the food,” said Jess.

“I had loads of this delicious chicken and these dumplings, they were to die for.”

Jess said the award ceremony had opened her eyes to what was really out there and the things she could do to help improve her community.

She said it was awesome hearing other award recipient’s stories, why they won, and what inspired them to do what they did.

“It is definitely a night I won’t forget any time soon.”