Award for kite festival

FILE

A young Ngongotaha Fire Brigade volunteer and local youth group have been recognised at this year's National Youth Awards.

Western Heights High School student Leah Hoffman, 16, received a Giving Back Award for her volunteer work and the 2015 OneChance Youth Project won an Anzac Youth Award for their Kite Festival.

The winners were presented with their awards at a special ceremony held last night at parliament.

Leah said she was shocked when she found out she had been nominated.

"I don't do volunteer work for the recognition or to get anything in return so I was super surprised when I got the call telling me to go down to Wellington."

At the age of 15 Leah successfully completed the 2014 Youth in Emergency Services programme.

On her 16th birthday she joined the Ngongotaha Volunteer Fire Brigade as a recruit firefighter.

Leah always has her hand up for local community events and those activities outside the area including Kiwi Culture Day, the A&P Show and fundraising for Leukaemia and Blood Cancer New Zealand.

She said she did volunteer work for the "sheer enjoyment of being able to help others".
"Even though it was a bit of a shock to get this award, I'm really grateful somebody thought I was worthy of a nomination."

The students of the 2015 OneChance Youth Project were also recognised at the youth awards, winning an Anzac Youth Award for organising a kite festival.

The free event was created by the group to commemorate the centennial anniversary of World War I.

One Chance's Chantelle Cobby, 16, said they were very excited to receive the award.
"Winning a national award is a real honour for us and it is great to get that level of acknowledgement for the hard work we put into the kite festival."

She said the award was "completely out of the blue".

"None of us were expecting it, we organised the kite festival because we wanted to do something to commemorate Anzac Day, we would have never guessed it would lead to us being recognised on a national level.

"This award is a huge bonus for us and we are so honoured and proud of our efforts."