Volunteer of the Month 2025

March 2025

Sarah Obata from Howick Playcentre

I’d like to nominate Sarah Obata from Howick Playcentre. Sarah has attended our centre since 2020, and from the moment she joined us, she was making active contributions to the running of our centre. 

Sarah has an eye and ear for the operational and procedural side of things – a lot of the onerous and complex stuff that overwhelms and intimidates most members. She is our patient treasurer, repeating herself again and again to help us understand cash flow summaries. She has spent hours poring over grant applications, acquiring our centre vital resources we couldn’t afford to buy, and now oversees many of our officeholders as a team leader and part of our centre management team. On sessions, Sarah displays the knowledge and experience she’s gained from the many Playcentre courses she’s taken the time to attend. 

We’re so grateful to have her and her tamariki as a part of our playcentre whānau, and think she is deserving of this award.

Rebekah Marcetic 

Howick Playcentre 

February 2025

Annette Brownlee from  Eden-Epsom Playcentre

Annette Brownlee has been coming to Eden-Epsom for 15+ years initially with her nieces and nephews and then as volunteer, now with her grandchildren and as a volunteer on days to help us license.

She has nurtured many children, buddied with them on independent sessions, given so many parent a wee break on tough days and kept our centre open five days a week.

On top of this she takes on many of the day-today tasks to keep the centre running including but in no way limited to doing the lawns, notified fire drills, pest control, goldfish care and pretty much anything that needs to be done around our centre. Not to mention the best cheese ball this side of the ‘90s.