National Volunteer week is coming up (June 20-26) and Volunteer South is encouraging individuals to take an active role in the community, by volunteering for an event, sports, music, conversation, working with kids or caring for others.

More than a million people across New Zealand say they volunteer for an organisation, contributing $4billion to the economy.

National Volunteer Week is about honouring the collective energies and mana of all volunteers in Aotearoa and this year's theme is ‘Recognise, Connect, Reimagine’.

Volunteer South is celebrating ten years of volunteering this year and the members pride themselves on creating stronger, more connected communities.

“We offer support to organisations using volunteers and help with those setting up a volunteer programme or those already up and running and just needing a health check,” Volunteer South’s Central Lakes manager Gillian White said.

“In addition to our core work we help to safely coordinate and support spontaneous volunteering in the event of an emergency. This was activated during the floods of 2019 and latterly during Covid-19.”

Gillian said the Central Lakes region received 632 offers of help and coordinated up to 275 volunteer activities each week during lockdown.

Whether volunteers are keen to help for an hour or a day, as a one off commitment or continuing into the future, there are a range of roles to get involved with, she said.

Find Volunteer opportunities and roles in your Wanaka App.