Spot-on volunteer reaches life membership

Gordon Preece

About 180,000 Nelson Tasman school kids have benefited from Michelle Fitzgerald’s work at the local Life Education Trust.

The current co-chair of the organisation recently received a Life Membership award at the trust’s national conference for her involvement since the trust was established in Nelson Tasman in 2003.

Michelle says her inspiration to join the trust came from a speech by the Nelson Tasman founders, Roy and Renate Savage, and to have served for two decades had been an honour.

“We get great feedback and support from the public and we have a lot of local sponsors on board to help us deliver the programme,” she says. “Twenty years ago, the trust was focused on general strands of education like health and nutrition, body systems, substance abuse and the fact that everybody is unique, and now digital citizenship and vaping are real areas of concern.

“There’s always new stuff to learn and talk to our children about, I just think it’s fantastic, and I’m pretty proud to have been involved.”

Michelle, who’s also a senior business consultant at Nimbus Software, says there had been “several” cases in her time with the trust where its work had been credited.

“The New Zealand Police commissioned a report, and they identified that one of the main reasons that cigarette smoking, alcohol, and cannabis use was being reduced in their Year 9 and 10 children was because of the lessons that the children were attending in the Life Ed classroom prior to reaching college,” she says.

“There’s been numerous other situations similar to that where you hear a story where kids have really stopped and thought ‘well, I don’t want to make that decision, I don’t want to take that stuff,’ whether it be drugs or alcohol.

“There’s a real decline in people who are taking up cigarette smoking and drinking these days as they get older and reach their teenage years, so it’s good to feel that what you’re involved in actually makes a difference.”

Michelle says about 6000 Nelson Tasman children are educated through the trust each year. “I’m pretty passionate about children in our area... and if I can make a contribution and be supportive, I’ll keep on trucking.”