Jade Freestone, Leamington Playcentre
Jade and her daughter Ella went out of their way to make us feel right at home from day one. They truly showed me what whānaungatanga and manaakitanga look like in practice. Jade is just an all-round fantastic human being.
I’m a qualified kaiako, but to be honest, my time in the ECE sector had drained a lot of my initiative. I came to Playcentre planning to take a back seat, relax, and just enjoy being in the space with Esme. But seeing Jade’s energy, ambition, and can-do attitude single-handedly brought back my passion. Right from the start, I felt so excited to head to Playcentre to chat, brainstorm, and work alongside her.
Recently our centre flooded and Jade has spent hours of her own time sorting and cataloguing damaged items for insurance claims, cleaning up and reorganising.
She really listens to people, shows great aroha, and just gets things done. Her drive and ability to bring people together while managing and respecting everyone’s different backgrounds is amazing. She really builds kotahitanga across our centre. Jade embodies what Playcentre and Te Whāriki are all about: working collaboratively, problem-solving together, and creating a safe, welcoming place for our tamariki to learn and grow. She truly deserves to be recognised for everything she does.
Grace
Victoria Webster, Pāpāmoa Playcentre
Victoria has done so much for our centre lately. She’s changed her entitlement days to both keep our Tuesday sessions going with First Aid, and she’s rearranged hours for her daughter to help keep our Tamariki Nui sessions afloat.
She’s always there after hours, either tidying the craft area, or working on wall displays, or finding an unloved area that needs a spruce up. Her latest project has been to completely renovate the family play room, which she has put so many hours into – from hand stitching the decorative bunting, to hunting down items from her vision board to bring it all together. This wasn’t a particularly easy thing to do with the suppliers being so limited. She ended up pooling her own resources to get us what we needed, and now we have a lovely cohesive space that the Tamariki all love.
Victoria has also talked her husband into making various bits and pieces for us, a nice wooden pen holder and a whole shelving/seating unit.
Victoria has done all of this with her arm in a cast, and she is our resident professional face painter. Her designs are SO gorgeous and if she wasn’t so busy being a doctor she could definitely start a side hustle – luckily we get her skills free of charge! Her next project is to re-do the kitchen area, and we are just so thankful to have her ideas to beautify our space, and her hard mahi to get it done.
Erin Coleman, Richmond (Nelson) Playcentre
Erin is so hard working, and involved with everything Playcentre, she truly is the backbone of our centre.
Recently she worked with boys college to commission a beautiful play whare for our centre. It is absolutely beautiful and the Tamariki love it.
The year before that she worked with the men’s shed and got a wonderful play kitchen built for all our little water loving friends. This space is one of the most popular stations at the centre.
She is a real go getter. As well as the big projects she is also the one behind the mower every other week, keeping the dandelions under control to save tiny toes from bee stings. In every hui and planning session her perspective is invaluable and she’s always the one to get things done.
In addition to all that she is a wonderful mother to her 2 boys and the way she handles conflict resolution is really inspiring, I feel I learn a lot from her every time we talk.
Katjana
