Congratulations to Year 13 student Jessica Gill who was recently awarded the Netball New Zealand Youth Volunteer of the Year Award.

Jessica travelled to Auckland for an all expenses paid trip to attend the awards and enjoyed every minute of it alongside some of her netball idols.

Jessica has a passion for Netball and has dedicated a lot of her time to the sport. She has been volunteering in netball for five years through coaching and umpiring.

She has coached a team at Carisbrook School and in her third year took on a second team. This year she coached a team at both Carisbrook and St Clair Schools. On top of that, she umpires and this year began doing that at a senior level on Saturdays.

She also runs a skill academy for players from their early primary school years through to Year 8. Her focus there is to build their skills and introduce them to the game.

Around that she plays for the Queen's senior blue team as a wing defence and goal defence, as well as a social team.

She loves the sport and always feels it is important to give back to the community.

Next year Jessica hopes to continue with her passion for sport and  plans to study sport development and management at Otago University.