New community support group from Club Rivers is up for an award

Whether it’s sprucing up the local church or shaving heads for the Leukaemia Foundation, Club Rivers is setting the bar high for community support.

Volunteers Lachlan Green and Anita Tang with Club Rivers CEO Stuart Jamieson. Picture: Tim Clapin.

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Whether it’s sprucing up the local church or shaving heads for the Leukaemia Foundation, Club Rivers is setting the bar high for community support.

The club has injected over $300,000 in the past year into the community and volunteered hundreds of hours through its CommuniTEAM program.

Despite only getting off the ground in September last year, the CommuniTEAM have been heavily involved in 15 different local projects — which is why the club has been nominated for the 2016 Pride of Australia Medal, supported by ClubsNSW.

Club Rivers CEO Stuart Jamieson, who accepted the nomination on behalf of the club, said volunteering is something they drive consistently throughout the club.

“We decided a few years back that we needed to improve on the role we were playing within our own locality of Riverwood in Sydney’s southwest,” he said.

“We knew financial dollars obviously assist in supporting our local community, but we quickly learnt that we could also volunteer support, a far more humanistic approach in lending a hand, ear or shoulder — some of these programs meant just as much as giving financial support.”

Activities have included volunteers sleeping outdoors to raise awareness of domestic violence, selling copies of the Big Issue, assisting with soccer lessons for disabled children and much more.

For more information and nomination details for Pride of Australia, go to prideofaustralia.com.au