Community Hub trailer delivers the fun for Hurunui holidays

Hurunui’s Community Hub trailer has again rolled out the good times for the district’s young people over the holidays.

New Community Youth Worker at Hurunui District Council Kimberley Spencer says it was great to be able to pack the trailer with games and snacks for Hurunui Youth Programme’s Games Day in Amberley over the school holidays.

The trailer headed out to Amberley Domain loaded with giant Jenga, 4-To-Score and other oversized games for an afternoon of fun for 14 young people from across the Hurunui.

“When I heard about the Community Hub, I was expecting to see a building, not a trailer,” Spencer said. “It makes sense, though, when you have a district that is so widespread.

“It’s amazing and it makes everything so much easier to have equipment permanently loaded into the trailer.”

Funding for the community hub trailer was obtained last year from the Lotteries Community Fund and the new trailer seriously started to pull its weight for the 2023 Kia Ora Summer Pool Parties, when it travelled to 11 locations around Hurunui.

“The community hub allows us to set up anywhere in the district, with everything that is needed in one place. When we were investigating setting up a youth hub, we soon realised having a physical location alone wouldn’t work as so many of our young people wouldn’t be able to access it due to transport challenges,” Council’s Community Partnerships Manager Rhea Duffy says.

Spencer says the youth programme is “huge” for enabling connections among the district’s young people.

“We had two young people these holidays on the programme who had never met before. By the end of the day, they were best friends. With such a large district, there isn’t always the opportunity for young people to connect, especially if both parents work, and to get out and about, and out of the house.”

It’s an opportunity to give back to the youth programme for Spencer, who was a member of Hurunui Youth 10 years ago as a young person growing up in the Hurunui. After working in the early childhood sector in Hurunui, she started with Council in the Youth Worker role last month.