Congratulations to Chris Bayley on gaining his GOLD award with the Student Volunteer Army for completing 500 hours of volunteer work over the past three years!

So, what is the Student Volunteer Army? 

It was set up after the CHCH earthquakes to provide a way for students to support the clean-up process and it has grown into an organisation that is running in lots of schools around the country. 

If you're doing something to help other people and you're not doing it to make money then that's volunteering. Whether you're putting out cones at sports events, organising the school ball, coaching a sports team, planting trees or picking up plastic rubbish at the beach you're making contribution to your community. 

The Student Volunteer Army helps you record any volunteering you've done, anywhere at any time. Home, school and community service are all counted. You can also log every piece of volunteering you’ve done in the past. The SVA tracks it, keeps a record of it, orders it by date and makes it available to you whenever you need. 

You can download your Summary of Service as a PDF at any time, which is handy for applications for jobs, uni, tech and scholarships.

As you reach each SVA Service Award volunteering milestone, you receive a badge. 

SVA commissioned independent research which showed that the SVA Service Award benefits and impacts young people through a range of positive, experienced impacts including increased leadership skills, empathy, community connections, work readiness, and overall improved sense of self-worth and pride through volunteering and service. 

You can sign up at https://service.sva.org.nz/