Sowing seeds for new crop of sport stars

For almost a decade, the Wairarapa Sports Education Trust has supported talented local athletes, some of whom have gone on to be Kiwi sporting heroes and household names.

In order to continue growing local legends with financial support, co-chairmen Blair Stevens and Brett Gould are working to a new vision for the trust, and are aiming to lift its profile in the community.

Mr Gould said the focus was to provide sustainable support for Wairarapa sports participants to enable them to meet their full potential.

"We want to be the specialist group in the Wairarapa who gives grants to young up and coming sports stars," said Mr Gould, who helps organise community events to raise money for grants.

"And to do that, we need the profile."

Mr Stevens said that he has set up both a website and a Facebook page for the trust, in order to make it more visible - and to get more young people involved as trustees and sponsors.

"Hopefully, we can get at least 2000 people to like us on Facebook," said Mr Stevens.

"We want to be a more modern type of trust. Times are changing - and for us to be hitting up younger supporters and followers, we need to reach the Facebook generation.

"A lot of people didn't know we existed. So we need to find better avenues to tell people what we do."

Since it was established in 2004, the trust has provided financial assistance to sporting greats such as cricketers Jesse Ryder and Ross Taylor, golfer Ben Campbell and rower Fergus Fauvel.

It provides grants to budding sportspeople to meet the costs of coaching, further education and development, travel and entry fees into tournaments.

"It can be something as simple as transport costs, so they can get the train to participate in a competition," said Mr Stevens.

"Travel and coaching costs can be quite expensive. We want to help them get to that next level - a contract with a national team."

In the past three years, the Trust has offered over $60,000 in grants to Wairarapa sportspeople, including for world champion free diver Kathryn Nevatt, and Masterton hammer thrower Alex Fafeita.

"There's a lot of talent that's come out of the Wairarapa," said Mr Stevens.

"We support everyone from teenagers, to the lady [Valerie Scarr] who went on to judge table tennis at the Olympics."

Mr Stevens and Mr Gould will be presenting three grants of $500 each at the Wairarapa Times-Age on June 5.

They had received several applications for the scholarships, all of which, they said, are of a high quality.

Mr Stevens said his favourite part of his role as chairman is making dreams come true for young sports hopefuls.

"I rang [young tennis player] Sade Atkinson to tell her she'd got a scholarship, and I could hear the excitement in her voice.

"You can tell it means so much to them.

"That's why I'm on it - it's a cool feeling."