WEGC, JWG Volunteer Award
Oliver and Ray had planned on attending and presenting the inaugural Jemima Winter Gazley Volunteer Award at the Wellington East Girls College senior prize giving event. However, a tsunami of tears washed them away into the harbour that night, and Michelle Kennedy (Junior Dean Lead) read the speech Ray had previously penned, before their unscheduled dip in the briny abyss.
The speech said; ”I hope you can forgive our no-show. We feared seeing Jem’s peers and friends; all living best lives would break our hearts, yet again. To cry in front of hundreds of teenagers, to lose our beautiful girl to brain cancer — these are not things parent dreams of. And yet here we are… struggling with our grief and our loss, and simultaneously looking for light. We dedicate this award in Jemima’s stead, as she would be so proud of you all.
To speak of selfless giving, we must acknowledge Jemima’s Wish as New Zealand’s leading brain-cancer charity for young people, raising over $800,000. Her name honours a lab at the University of Newcastle, in Australia. It is home to a robot that tests drugs against her live tumour cells she donated. Alongside other kids donated tumour tissue. It’s called “The Jem Bot”.
Jemima is part of the reason New Zealand has its first ever drug trial for kids with “D.I.P.G”. When she was diagnosed - there was nothing. Now there is a glimmer of hope for other families.
Because Jem won’t get a prize-giving this year, shout out to her for winning the NZ Herald, Heroes award. Also nominated and placed third for Quote of the Year when she said, “If I can’t be cured, I will be the cure”.
Jemima also received the inaugural Spirit of Wellington award at the Wellys, now renamed in her honour as “The Jemima Gazley, Spirit of Wellington Award”.
On behalf of the Gazley family, and in her honour, I present “The Jemima Gazley WEGC Volunteer Award” to acknowledge a sister who has given to others, without the expectation of praise or return for her kindness.
The winner of the award will receive a $100 donation to the charity of her choice, and $100 to Jemima’s Wish charity from the Gazley family. Congratulations to 2023 winner Nellie Porter!”
Nellie was nominated by teachers at WEGC and upon winning the award, she let us know what she’d been up to in the community;
“Up until August (2023), I’ve been part of SS4C and was subsequently one of the organizers of the March and May climate strikes. A couple of weeks leading up to the strikes were intense, so a lot of my volunteering hours in the first half of the year were spent there.
Another large part of my volunteering is from 350 Aotearoa. I have been a part of 350 for two years and they are very near and dear to me. We have weekly meetings and have been promoting our homegrown energy campaign throughout the year.
A much smaller component of my volunteer work is from the Free Store, which I loved volunteering for but had to drop as other commitments ramped up.
The largest component of my volunteer work is being an Environmental Prefect at WEGC. It has been the most important role of my life so far, and I am simultaneously proud of what we have done and wish we could do more! We now have improved compost bins, recycling bins, reusable cups at the canteen, a gardening club, and are having bike parking installed over the summer holidays. We also held a recycling event in term 3 of the school year, which was a great success”.
