Nearly 50 organisations benefit from Sport NZ funding

A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.

Sport Gisborne Tairawhiti allocated $136,141 of the $211,000 available locally through the Community Resilience Fund — an exercise SGT chief executive Stefan Pishief described as a privilege.

A total of 47 sports clubs and organisations received funding.

The money was made available from Sport New Zealand to help sports clubs and organisation around the country with their costs from the impact of the Covid-19 lockdown.

“It was a privilege to be able to give some immediate financial relief to many of our hard-working codes and clubs through this fund,” Mr Pishief said.

“Although we didn't distribute all of the available money due to the set criteria in place, proportionally our region had one of the highest, if not the highest, distributions in the country.

“We were really pleased that a good portion of applicants, 37 percent, were from the East Coast and our rural communities, who sometimes can miss out on opportunities due to their isolation.”

Sport Gisborne Tairawhiti knew many of the region's codes and clubs still faced significant challenges, he said.

“We will work with them to help them navigate through those challenges.”

The funds not allocated locally will be returned to Sport New Zealand for redistribution.

“The $15 million for the Community Resilience Fund is from Sport New Zealand, part of $26 million that Sport NZ quickly pulled together from its own reserves and the reallocation of other planned project/programme funding.”