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Come September, Jim Savage of Kawerau will have been in a wheelchair for 50 years, but that certainly hasn't hindered his tireless service to the community.
"Jim has a huge heart and great community spirit," says Whakatane District Council safer community co-ordinator Peter Lander.
Mr Savage, 72, was a keen sportsman when he contracted polio at the age of 22, which left him a paraplegic. He has been heavily involved in sports ever since, representing New Zealand at the Paralympics from 1968 in everything from table tennis to swimming to shot put.
In the 1980s, Mr Savage travelled with groups of disabled people in a special boat made for them by Sir Len Southward, longtime supporter of the disabled community and founder of the Southward Car Museum on the Kapiti Coast. They crossed the English Channel, Lake Titicaca and the Vancouver Straits and went down the Nile.
Mr Savage was dismayed at seeing polio still rife in Peru while there for the Titicaca trip, and on his return he collected wheelchairs and crutches from hospitals throughout the country and donated them to disabled people in Peru.
In the 1990s Mr Savage helped to set up the Eve Rimmer Games, a biennial event named in honour of one of New Zealand's top Paralympians. The games are aimed at encouraging people with disabilities to get involved with sports.
As well as coaching school rugby and athletics and wheelchair sports for the Eve Rimmer Games, Mr Savage is on committees for road safety and wheelchair access and devotes hours to fundraising for good causes such as rest homes, cancer wards and athletic clubs.
He says he volunteers as a way of acknowledging the help he received when he needed to raise funds to get to the Paralympics .
"I do it because they did it for me. It's how I thank the community for helping me."
