National Volunteer Week 2012 - May 14, 2012

National Volunteer Week 2012 (14-20 May) saw Whitelion celebrate our volunteers. In Victoria alone we held three dinners across the state, in Morwell, Bendigo and Melbourne.

The Melbourne event held at the Metropolitan Hotel hosted volunteers from Whitelion's past events, and volunteers involved in our Mentoring, Employment and Youth Programs. At this event we witnessed the introduction of two new awards, which were put in place to recognise Whitelion's dedicated volunteers

Throughout Whitelion's short 12 years' history of supporting youth at risk we have had many valued volunteers support us in a range of different ways, from mentoring, through providing role modelling in youth justice settings, to giving a young person a job . Some stay for a short time whilst others have been involved with Whitelion for years - and we could not provide our services without them! Whitelion's volunteers are the backbone of our organisation and are crucial to in helping us achieve our goals.

We felt that the National Volunteer Week was the perfect vehicle to show our appreciation to the long service of various volunteers across the organisation. We are delighted to announce and acknowledge those who have provided five or more years of volunteer service to Whitelion. These awards were presented to:

The Board Diana Batzias Peter Francis Craig Young Peter McNeil

Mentoring Program Shane De Witt Dorothy Mackechnie David Mere Eleanor Williams Jamie Ramsay *

Employment Program TOLL Group City West Water Australian Taxation Office

Events Mary Latham Catherine Jager

*(who it turns out should be receiving an award for 10 years' service rather than 5!)

Our CEO Mark Watt also used the event as an opportunity to coin a new CEO's award, put in place to recognise valued volunteers who have gone above and beyond their initial commitments. The new award, named "Golden Lion" was presented:

Roger Antochi from TOLL Group
Andrew Smith from Lend Lease

Both volunteers have championed Whitelion within their workplaces, gathering further support for our work at every opportunity. They have both supplied monumental amounts of their time to support Whitelion's fundraising initiatives and events. They have also been particularly helpful to our upcoming move as we venture to a new building in West Melbourne.

We would also like to take this opportunity to thank our guest speaker for the night, Richard Maloney from The Sports Leadership Coach for taking the time out of his busy schedule to come and join in our celebration.

Congratulations to our long service volunteers and a huge thank you to all the volunteers that contribute to our work each and every day, We could not change the lives of so many at-risk young people without the hard work and commitment of our volunteers. Thank you.

Every hour you can spare will make a difference - click here to read how you can volunteer with Whitelion.