Volunteers honoured for service

Member for Barker Tony Pasin has acknowledged the work of volunteers in his electorate with awards granted at a morning tea in Mount Gambier last week. National Volunteer Week is a week to highlight the importance of volunteering and acknowledge and thank those that give their time to volunteer for the benefit of others.

National Volunteer Week is Australia’s largest annual celebration of volunteering, held on May 15-21.

“Volunteers really are the heart of communities across Barker and they deserve recognition for the time and skills they donate to help make our local communities great places to live, work and raise a family,” Mr Pasin said. “From the local Men’s Shed, Footy or Netball Club, cancer support group or CFS, more often than not it’s the unpaid work of volunteers that keeps these organisations running and offering so much to the local community.

“The Barker Volunteer Awards and morning tea is a small way in which I can acknowledge and thank the community members who go above and beyond by volunteering.”

More than 100 community members across the electorate were nominated and received an award from the Federal Member. Mr Pasin said he was overwhelemed with the response and has declared the awards program a success.

“This was the first year I’ve run the awards program and I’m thrilled with the number of volunteers who were nominated,” he said.

“I hope that it has gone some way to raising awareness of the tremendous work that our volunteers do and next year, the program will be even bigger.”