Graham Pearson is volunteer of the month

Volunteer of the Month is Graham Pearson. PICTURE / PAUL BROOKS

Whanganui Volunteer Centre's second recipient of the Mud Ducks $40 voucher is Castlecliff stalwart and long-time volunteer Graham Pearson.
"It's to reward people who do this out of the goodness of their heart and who do such an incredible job and go beyond the call of duty," says Sandra Rickey, centre manager.
"You can't put a price on what volunteers do — it's incredible."

Graham's volunteering started on behalf of his children, when he and his wife Lyn were involved in Playcentre and then with Girl Guides and Scouts.

Graham was a research officer at Massey University until his retirement about 10 years ago.
He came out from England to take up his job at Massey in 1969.
"I was going to stay for three years, then I met this gorgeous Kiwi girl and I'm still here," he says.
"Lyn grew up in Wellington so I promised her we'd retire by the sea, so that's why we're in Castlecliff."

It wasn't long before they met Ted Frost and got involved in Progress Castlecliff and particularly Coast Care.
Graham became Ted's 2IC and when Ted became ill and died, Graham took over his duties.
"We were doing Saturday mornings as a group, but that dwindled as people left, so we made it into a community project."

Graham has an email list of volunteers who help him look after the dunes along the beach, planting native species like flax, taupata, karamu and ngaio.
"We've been working on the back dunes with bigger plants, but now there's talk about the fore dunes [fronting the beach], planting pingao and spinifex.
"The idea is to do something there to stop sand blowing on to the carpark."

A big part of the job is also maintaining the plants, especially through their first summer.
Graham says he has plenty of help, including a team of about eight from Idea Services who assist regularly on a Monday morning.
"They've done over 600 hours with me," he says.
"We've been working on the flat areas on the edge of the dunes."

Whanganui Volunteer Centre refers volunteers to Graham to help with Coast Care.
"The best two have been Andrea, who helped for about two years, not only doing the physical work but also some community science, adding photos to the Naturewatch site. The other was Gavin, who had just spent the last few years overseeing restoring of vegetation alongside new motorways." Both Andrea and Gavin had to move on for family reasons — so a new regular helper would be welcome.

Until last year he was treasurer for Progress Castlecliff, and he's is still treasurer for Sustainable Whanganui and community representative on the Resource Recovery Trust.

Thanks to Mud Ducks for generous sponsoring of the Volunteer of the Month award.