Three community leaders named as Ambassadors

Photos kindly supplied by Richard Brown - rbphoto.co.nz

The Aoraki Foundation awarded three former trustees the status of Ambassador at a gala event last week. Lesley Roy, Ken McKenzie, and Ron Luxton were recognised for their service to the Aoraki Foundation at the event entitled Ascend Aoraki. Current trustee and Chairperson Greg Anderson explained,

“An Ambassador of the Aoraki Foundation is not only someone who has given their time to building our community foundation, but they exhibit our beliefs in their day to day lives and continue to support the foundation through advocacy and promotion. These three are fine examples of the commitment many individuals have made to this great community asset.”

Lesley Roy was a trustee for six years, five of which were as Chairperson. She was the Mackenzie District Representative and oversaw a strong period of growth at the Foundation. Lesley is still heavily involved as the Chairperson of the Aoraki Foundation Women’s Fund, a fund for women, by women.

Ken Mackenzie was one of the original five trustees. Ken was instrumental in some of the early funding projects like C-Bay and the Miller General Impact Fund. Ken continues to provide pro bono legal advice to the Foundation and has a huge amount of knowledge on philanthropy and bequests.

Ron Luxton also served six years on the Aoraki Foundation board. Ron played a pivotal role in the establishment of the South Canterbury Health Endowment Fund and the MRI Scanner fundraising campaign. Ron is still involved with the Aoraki Foundation as the chairperson of the MRI Charitable Trust.

All three ambassadors spoke fondly of their time as trustees and stressed how important it is that the community supports the Aoraki Foundation to continue to grow new funds. Ron Luxton recalled an old proverb that explains the virtues of the Aoraki Foundation.

“One has made at least a start on discovering the meaning of life when they plant shade trees, under which they know full well they will never sit.”

After the presentation of awards Chief Executive, Richard Spackman, outlined the aspirational goal the Aoraki Foundation has set. This is to distribute $1 million per year in funding by the year 2030. In his words “This goal is as lofty as the mountain we are named after, but we owe it to those that have come before us to be brave, we owe it to our community to be ambitious, and we owe it to ourselves to be resolute.” He continued, “Achieving a target like this would mean South Canterbury would have another funder similar in scale to Trust Aoraki or Community Trust. It would give many charitable organisations another reliable source of funding.” Achieving this lofty goal will not be easy and the Foundation acknowledge they will not do this alone. “In order to support the community for the foreseeable future we first will need assistance ourselves”, Richard explains. He is confident that support will come, “South Canterbury is a wonderful place full of generous and charitable people that give where they live.”

Overall it was a very successful and enjoyable night . In Richard’s words “The board and I felt it was important to get our Foundation family back together after a disruptive couple of years. It was great to see so many smiling faces and hear reminiscing of past exploits, some of which may even be true” he joked.

About the Aoraki Foundation

The Aoraki Foundation is South Canterbury’s official community foundation. A community foundation is an infrastructure for giving and philanthropy. Using a smarter giving model, they provide a vehicle for generous donors to make everlasting gifts to their community. The Aoraki Foundation was established in 2009 by Ken McKenzie, Nick Noone, Sid McAuley, Damon Odey and Nigel Davenport. Over the last thirteen years they have grown their endowment funds to over $3 million dollars, they have funded the community to the tune of $1.4 million and supported fundraising efforts for large scale community projects. All of this has been made possible by the generosity of many individual and corporate donors. They are governed by a board of dedicated trustees who volunteer their time and expertise for the benefit of the community.