The SVA (Student Volunteer Army) is a New Zealand registered charity committed to advancing volunteering. The SVA service award has been created to encourage and mobilise high school students to do community service. Through implementing the SVA service award at Rangi Ruru, we aim to create an environment for positive change by encouraging students to help those less fortunate. When one person volunteers, they inspire others. By utilising this, we can form a movement for community service.
Overall, we aim to create a movement for volunteering at Rangi Ruru. We want students to understand how giving their time has a wide-spread impact, and that it will benefit those who need it.
In 2015, world leaders agreed to 17 goals to better our world by 2030. These are the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. The SVA are working to mobilise action towards these goals. Every time you do volunteer work or community service this will be directed towards at least one of these goals. Therefore, your volunteering is contributing to a bigger picture, the solving of world-wide issues. You can find out more about the goals on the website here.
What you should aim for
We strongly encourage all students to achieve:
- 5 hour member pin by the end of Year 9/first year
- 32 hour bronze pin by the end of Year 10/second year
- We also encourage all students to be working towards achieving the 250 hour silver pin or the 500 hour gold pin by the end of Year 13.
If you have any questions about SVA at Rangi Ruru, please contact Mrs Tania Morgan via teams.
How to take part
- Within School
- Outside of School
- Annual/One-Off Events
Involvement
The role of fitness assistant is available to senior students and is a long-term service opportunity as it runs throughout the whole school year. Being a fitness assistant involves supervising the use of equipment, cleaning and maintaining equipment, assisting students with fitness programmes, organising and running events and challenges, attending workshops to update knowledge and share ideas.
Sign Up
To sign up, attend the meeting at the beginning of the year or get in contact with Ms Joyce.
Contacts
Ms Joyce, Fitness Centre Manager and Life Saving Co-ordinator l.joyce@rangiruru.school.nz
Involvement
Productions and shows require students to usher the audience in and out of the theatre, take tickets and shepherd people in the case of an emergency. Front of House/Ushering is a one-off service event.
Sign Up
Ms Bell will notify the whole school via email when this work is available.
Involvement
One to three lunchtimes per week instructing groups of Year 9 students training for the Bronze Star Award. Minimum requirement – must hold a Bronze Medallion Award or higher. Training requirement – one session with Ms Joyce at commencement of Term 1 and ongoing as required throughout the term.
Sign Up
With Ms Joyce at commencement of Term 1.
Contacts
Ms Joyce, l.joyce@rangiruru.school.nz
Involvement
Umpiring/refereeing for junior netball teams occurs on Wednesdays and/or Saturdays for up to two hours. Umpiring involves some level of skill and a good knowledge of the netball rules. Normally you will stay with the same team each week. On Wednesdays this will mean travelling with the team when their game is not at Rangi Ruru (transport is provided).
Sign Up
An email will be sent out at the beginning of the season for sign ups, or pop in to see a member of staff in the sports office.
Contacts
Mrs Harrop, Director of Sport, g.harrop@rangiruru.school.nz
Involvement
Peer Tutoring occurs once weekly over a year-long period. It involves being paired up with a younger student who needs help with your chosen subject. This is organised by Mr Bradley, other staff members, and the student leader in charge of peer tutoring. Only Year 12s and Year 13s can be peer tutors.
Sign Up
If you are interested in being a tutor sign up here.
If you are interested in being tutored sign up here.
Contacts
Mr. Bradley c.bradley@rangiruru.school.nz
Involvement
As and when required. Maximum ratio is 1:6 (1 supervisor to 6 students).
Minimum Requirement: Instruction and sign off by Ms Joyce AND 16 years or older, and in Year 12 or 13 with a minimum of a Bronze Star Award OR 15 years or older and hold a Bronze Cross Award.
Sign Up
With Ms Joyce at during Term 1 or 4 – l.joyce@rangiruru.school.nz
Involvement
Rangi Host is only offered to Year 12 and 13 students. It involves helping out when extra volunteers are needed, for example chaperoning scholarship exams, catering at events, helping with PTA events etc. When you sign up to be a Rangi Host you are not committed to be at every event- if you sign up you will be sent emails about each separate event which you then sign to up via a first in first served basis.
Sign Up
At the beginning of the year in your year group meeting you will be given the opportunity to sign up via a piece of paper or an email will be sent out.
Contacts
Emma Hanson, Events Manager, e.hanson@rangiruru.school.nz
Involvement
Sports coaching involves weekly trainings and attendance at games, as well as preparation for games and attending coaching trainings as they arise. Hours will be different with each sport – a minimum of two hours a week, up to four if your team has more than one game a week. Some students gain between 30 to 60 hours. This is a seasonal position that is available for Year 10s through to Year 13s. Additional help may be needed in other sports depending on numbers of students participating.
Sign Up
Check emails at start of sporting seasons or get in touch with the sports office.
Contact
Mrs Harrop, Director of Sport, g.harrop@rangiruru.school.nz
Involvement
Student Librarian is a weekly service position that occurs over a time period of at least two terms. Time options range from early mornings, interval, lunch, or after school and will last between 30 minutes to an hour. You will help out by issuing books, shelving, creating displays, making posters, covering books and magazines, help run book club, and dealing with student enquiries. Also, if you and your friends want to complete service hours at the same time, the librarian staff will be happy to arrange this.
Sign Up
Clubs/Co-curricular Expo at the start of the year or come into the library and talk to one of the staff.
Contacts
Sustainability Service
Sustainability at Rangi Ruru is available to all students and is a long-term service opportunity as it runs throughout the whole school year. We have a variety of sustainability groups all of which involve passionate students who are dedicated to helping our environment and planet. This area of service mostly includes gardening.
Eco-Action
Eco-action is an amazing cause which not only helps our environment but also enables us to make new friends from different schools and get volunteering hours. Eco-action grows native trees and plants suitable for native bird food and habitat within the Christchurch Red Zone. Eco-action tree planting is the perfect time to socialise, interact with people from different schools and years, which you may not usually have the chance to do. After ten sessions you can receive an Eco-action warrior badge! The afterschool planting sessions are: on Thursday at Rangi Ruru at the nursery (behind the pool) and Tuesday and Friday at Christ’s College. If you would like to be added to the Teams, please message the Head of Eco-Action or Ms Rivers.
Edible Gardens
At Edible Gardens, we tend the Rangi Ruru nursery and plant delicious veggies to give back to the wider community. It is a great way to make friends across year groups and get SVA hours.
Edible Gardens is an amazing time to hang out with your friends, meet new people through shared work and have a fun time gardening while listening to background music. Sessions are on Thursday after-schools, at the Rangi Ruru nursery. More info will be available on the Edible Garden Teams, please message the Head of Edible Gardens or Ms Sheehy if you want to be added.
Sign Up
Mrs Rivers, Director of Sustainability k.rivers@rangiruru.school.nz
Ms Sheehy, Edible Gradens, l.sheehy@rangiruru.school.nz
Involvement
Tech Angels at Rangi Ruru is a long-term service opportunity available to students from Year 7 onwards. As a Tech Angel, you will play a crucial role in managing technology for school events, particularly chapel services and assemblies, including handling PowerPoint presentations, audio systems, and other tech updates. Involvement extends beyond this in helping drive forward the use of technology in the school.
This programme provides hands-on experience in IT support, problem-solving, and teamwork. Tech Angels meet once to twice per term to stay connected and updated and members may occasionally have the opportunity to learn from IT professionals.
Being part of Tech Angels requires commitment, including volunteering some lunchtimes (Monday and/or Friday) to assist with chapel and assembly technology, and occasionally for additional events such as Prize Giving or guest speaker events. Additionally, members may develop basic tech skills that can help teachers and fellow students in the classroom.
Sign Up:
Students can sign up at the expo and are encouraged to attend the first meeting to get started.
Contact:
Owen Flattery, Head of Digital Transformation and Innovation, o.flattery@rangiruru.school.nz
Help make a difference to the lives of New Zealanders who are blind or have low vision by contributing to a range of worthwhile programs by giving your time, energy and expertise.
Sign up on the Blind Foundation website https://blindfoundation.org.nz or contact GeneralEnquiries@blindfoundation.org.nz.
Involvement
Burwood Hospital look for volunteers for specific jobs with flexible hours. Volunteering at a hospital involves helping patients and family members find their way around the hospital, providing gift and library book trolley services, running the hospital gift shop and delivering flowers or packages etc.
Sign Up
If you are interested in participating in this opportunity contact Burwood Hospital.
Contacts
burwoodvolunteers@gmail.com, www.cdhb.health.nz/hospitals-health-facilities/burwood-hospital.
CCS is an organization with a vision to see every disabled person included in the life of their family and community. As well as providing direct support and advocacy, they have a wider role in shaping society’s attitudes towards people with a disability. They partner with disabled people, their families and whānau to enable them to have choice and control in their lives. CCS also works with communities, family members, friends, hapu, iwi, educators, health, social services, business, employers, councils, government, community agencies, community groups and the public to identify and remove barriers that prevent people from achieving their goals. If this sounds like a cause that you would like to support, you could contact them through their website here.
Involvement
Every now and then pop-up volunteer options will come along with a long time in advance to sign up. These could include street collections and helping out at events.
Contacts
Phone 03 3299832 or email info@cholmondeley.org.nz.
Involvement
There are many different areas within the Mission needing volunteers such as clothing and furniture shops, food banks and night shelters.
Sign Up
You can sign up on the City Mission website here.
Contacts
info@citymission.org.nz or phone 03 365 0635.
Involvement
Over 200 people volunteer at Christchurch Hospital. Volunteers pack lollies for the shop after school on a Wednesday, help patients call taxis and read, give company to patients and undertake many other tasks.
Sign Up
Contact Christchurch Hospital Volunteering via their Facebook page, or:
Contacts
louise.hoban-watson@cdhb.health.nz, or www.cdhb.health.nz/tag/volunteers/
The Ministry of Civil Defence and Emergency Management provides leadership in reducing risk, being ready for, responding to and recovering from emergencies. It manages central government’s response and recovery functions for national emergencies and supports the management of local and regional emergencies. For further information visit https://www.civildefence.govt.nz/.
Involvement
Collecting donations from the public for an organisation. This will usually involve a few hours of collecting on a specified day.
Sign Up
Contact an organisation that you care about and inquire about opportunities for collecting. Check their website to see if they are needing volunteers. Some organisations you could consider collecting for are Salvation Army, Red Cross, Women’s Refuge, The Cancer Society or Multiple Sclerosis.
Involvement
Attending a planting day involves planting seedlings in parks or gardens or a clean-up to remove rubbish from parks and public areas.
Sign Up
Check the Christchurch City Council website linked below for dates and locations, and sign up information/contacts.
Contacts
www.ccc.govt.nz/parks-and-gardens/volunteer-in-parks/volunteer-events/
Volunteers needed to help elderly with their devices, including showing them how to use particular apps and answering any questions they may have.
When: Tuesday after school
Where: 73 Roydvale Avenue, Burnside, Christchurch
Who: Year 9 to 13
Skills required: Confident with apple and android phones
Contact: Message Mya Taylor on Teams if you are interested
‘Foster Hope Charitable Trust believes that every child in care deserves to know that their community cares about them.’
You can help by making handcrafted items that can be included in backpacks that go to children in foster care. For further information, visit https://www.fosterhope.org.nz/(volunteer information is located under the ‘Support Us’ tab)
Involvement
Helping with gardening in a community garden.
Sign Up
Enquire on the Community Gardens Christchurch website and find a garden to volunteer in.
Contacts
Involvement
Nurse Maude relies on many volunteers so that they can provide their services. After getting in contact with them they will let you know what they need help with, this could be helping in the hospice shop or various other roles. See Mrs Tania Morgan about this. You must be aged 14 years or older.
Sign Up
Get in touch with Nurse Maude and see if they have any volunteering vacancies.
Contacts
Email volunteers@nursemaude.org.nz or call 03 375 4230.
Involvement
Assistant Volunteers (16 to 17 years) primarily help our Animal Keepers in the Farmyard with the cleaning and maintenance of enclosures. They also assist senior volunteers at key animal feeds and with a variety of other housekeeping and light maintenance tasks.
Sign Up
Sign up by completing the application pack on the website here and emailing it to volunteers@oranawildlifepark.co.nz.
Contacts
Call: 03 359 7109
Email: info@oranawildlifepark.co.nz.
Involvement
Every so often volunteer opportunities will pop up to help out your local Plunket. Plunket is New Zealand’s largest provider of support services for the development, health and wellbeing of children under 5. These opportunities could include working bees, bucket collection, or helping out at fundraising events. You could also voluunteer by knitting for Plunket.
Sign Up
Sign up via the Plunket website here.
Recreate NZ aims to empower young people with disabilities. As a volunteer, you will see our beautiful country and meet fantastic young people along the way. Doing a placement with Recreate NZ is a great time to travel around New Zealand, as it is a lot of what they do with their youth. Most of your time spent with them will be on their programmes working alongside young people. However they can facilitate some office time and allocate tasks.
Your responsibilities on the programmes will encompass a very broad spectrum. In very general terms, we would like you to encourage young people to try each activity, facilitate their success, encourage them to take responsibility for themselves and others and to have a good time! The most important part of your role is to be a mate, friend and comrade on programme, this means the world to the Recreate NZ youth! Find out more on their website here.
Contact
Email: info@recreate.org.nz or volunteering@recreate.org.nz
Phone: 09 638 5364
Red Cross in New Zealand is an organisation which helps to support and care for people. Some of the things they do for people include providing hot meals, driving people safely to the hospital, sorting out education programmes at schools around the country. They help families who have lost each other to re-find them and be together again. This means they work a lot around refugee settlement programmes. The Red Cross mission is to improve the lives of vulnerable people by mobilising the power of humanity and enhancing community resilience. The Red Cross Fundamental Principles guide all they do, whether were helping people in New Zealand communities or providing urgent relief in an international disaster. Some volunteer options could be things such as helping out at the Red Cross shop, collecting bucket collections on the street and being an event volunteer.
Find out more here.
The Salvation Army aims to fight poverty and social and spiritual distress in New Zealand. They assist more than 120,000 families and individuals each year with budgeting advice, food and clothing assistance, life skills programs and other comfort and support. They are committed to caring for people, transforming lives and reforming society. If you are interested in supporting the Salvation Army, contact them through their website for opportunities at https://www.salvationarmy.org.nz/.
The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Incorporated (SPCA) is an animal welfare charity that aims to create a ‘world where all animals are treated with respect and kindness.’ There are many volunteer roles, e.g., Animal Centre Volunteer (age restricted) or Op Shop Volunteer. There are also ways to volunteer from home. Find out more at https://www.spca.nz/
Involvement
St. John is a charitable organisation providing health care services to the New Zealand public. Volunteering with St John gives you the flexibility to choose various roles and options that work with your family, school and other co-curricular commitments. You can give us as little as an hour, or as much time as you like.
Sign Up
Sign up on the St John website.
Contacts
Involvement
‘The Kind Foundation’s purpose is to meet and relate to the needs of people in their communities, and where they work, in a way that will encourage them to develop as individuals, express their own needs and reach their full potential.’
Volunteer roles at The Kind Foundation include:
- Outdoor adventure camp leaders
- Climate action and sustainability projects
- Holiday programme leaders
- Planning and delivering events
Sign Up
You can sign up on the website here (located underneath employment opportunities)
Involvement
Depends on the needs of each retirement home, they will specify either on a website, or after you contact them.
Sign Up
Contact a local retirement home (email, phone etc) and ask they need help from volunteers.
Women’s Refuge is an organization for women and their children, aiming to prevent and stop family violence in New Zealand. They work with individuals and families through to involvement with local community and government agencies. This includes implementing education programs and support services, and providing information and safe housing to women, young people and children experiencing abuse. They aim to create a positive impact. If this sounds like a cause you would like to support don’t hesitate to contact them through their website- https://womensrefuge.org.nz/.
Other local service opportunities you might be interested in:
- Guides, Keas, Brownies, Pippins, Cubs
- Children’s club leader
- Pre-school helper
- Primary school helper
- Kindergarten helper
- Pony Club
- After school care
- Sunday school
- Christchurch environment centre
World Vision 40-Hour Challenge https://worldvision.org.nz/connect/40-hour-challenge
Relay for Life https://relayforlife.org.nz
Mother of all Clean-ups Christchurch (first Saturday of May)
SPCA Cupcake Day https://cupcakeday.spca.nz
Southern Cross Round the Bays, Christchurch https://movefor.mentalhealth.org.nz/events
Ronald McDonald House to House Challenge https://www.housetohouse.org.nz