Congratulations to Lauren Forbes who is the 2022 recipient of the Altrusa Award.

Lauren is a determined, kind and diligent person who has been actively involved in the community including volunteering at the Salvation Army, umpiring Lacrosse and assisting with film competitions and the competitive film club at school. Lauren really enjoys working with the many members of the competitive film club which she co-leads. She loves helping others to be creative and make their own films to enter national competitions like Onscreen and the One Minute Film Competition. 

Lauren’s teachers describe her as a hardworking student, and she herself says “Even though I am not a top student, I work hard on completing my assignments to the best of my ability and submitting them to the highest standard I can. I would also describe myself as curious. I love learning new things and growing my knowledge on various topics.” Lauren's involvement in Lacrosse is where she demonstrates good sportsmanship. Lacrosse is a fairly new sport to NZ and Lauren saw that the community was short of qualified umpires. She realised that teams would not be able to play without officials and decided that this would be a way she could give back to the sport she loves. The Salvation Army is always in need of volunteers, especially around the holiday period. Last year Lauren saw them asking for additional volunteers because their normal volunteers needed a break from the mad holiday rush. She helped put together food parcels for families in need. 

We would like to congratulate Reipae Dunn, Eila Posimani-McCay, Hillary Clarke and Kiera Sullivan who were also nominated for this award.