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Students and staff at Ōrewa Beach School began a new term last Monday in a spruced-up setting, thanks to the efforts of a community “volunteer army” mustered by local estate agent Ben Gibson (HM September 18).
Ben has been volunteering his time and labour to help locals with a range of projects this year, and has now opened up his initiative to form a group of Coast volunteers. The idea is they can come together when needed to provide free labour in the community, similar to Christchurch’s Student Army.
Around 40 adults and twice that number of children turned up to the first community project, at Ōrewa Beach School on the last Saturday of the holiday, armed with a wide range of tools and equipment. Ben thanked Ōrewa builder Luke Martens in particular for bringing along a tipper truck laden with tools.
For five hours, the crew touched up paint, clipped hedges, weeded and tidied garden beds, trimmed trees, replaced playground bark, water blasted public areas, cleaned up signage and laid paving stones across grassed areas to give children access to a playground without having to get muddy on the way.
Ben said some residents from neighbouring Kensington Park came over, saying they were too old to help but bringing food for the recruits.
The working bee was the first group event organised by Ben, who launched a “Five Hours of Free Labour” initiative early this year, offering his services for five-hour stints to community groups in the area.
“Pretty crazy that on Saturday we would have knocked out over 150 man hours in one day,” he said. “Just goes to show how powerful the community uniting is.”
He hopes to arrange the next group event towards the end of summer.
Meanwhile, Ben’s personal tally of free labour offered has reached 115-120 hours.
Deputy principal Marray Barclay said the turnout had been excellent.
“Fortunately, the weather stayed fine until the reward of cool drinks and a barbequed sausage arrived later in the day. It was a fantastic effort by all concerned and a big thank you to Ben for organising this event,” he said.
Ben said he had been humbled by the show of support from the community. He thanked Hibiscus Matters for its earlier coverage of his free community service initiative, saying it had drawn a good response and helped to ensure a good turnout at the school.
Ben also praised Harcourts Cooper & Co for its backing, including the provision of free ice creams and coffee.
“It’s easy just to put money into something, but to actually do the work is, I think, way more important.”
