$20k helping hand for trust

An organisation dedicated to helping Western Bay youngsters ‘Get Smart' by avoiding binge drinking and drugs has received a $20,000 financial boost as its well-known Street Van turns 24.

Thanks to BayTrust's substantial grant, charitable trust Get Smart Tauranga has received a helping hand to pay for its 2015 operational costs.


Get Smart's street help van will celebrate its 24th birthday next month. Photo: Supplied.

Get Smart has been running in Tauranga since 1991, and provides free drug and alcohol counselling for 600 people a year aged 13-24 at the 17th Avenue Historic Village.

They are also responsible for a range of other support programmes and have five core staff members, seven part-time contractors plus around 30 volunteers.

'We have a real issue with alcohol in our community,” says Get Smart manager Stuart Caldwell.

'Many people don't realise, but we have a huge number of inebriated young people, especially young females, at risk just from excess alcohol consumption.”

Get Smart runs the well-known Street Help van, which will celebrate its 24th birthday next month.

Every Friday and Saturday night, between 10pm and 3am, a team of Get Smart volunteers can be found dishing out free hot pies and warm milos to dozens of youngsters while talking to them about drug and alcohol issues.

'We're putting food in their stomach, which slows down the metabolism of alcohol, but we're always looking out for people at risk,” explains Stuart.

'Very often we take young people home, to a safe location, or sometimes to hospital if they're too inebriated to hold a conversation.”

The distinctive Street Help van travels around numerous city suburbs and to townships like Te Puke, although it usually winds up in Tauranga's CBD after midnight.

Stuart says volunteers provide a non-judgmental ear and their presence helps improve safety on our streets and prevents dangerous situations from occurring.

'We've got a very good rapport with young people in town,” he adds. 'It's a good opportunity just to talk to them and ask them about their life issues.

'One time it took our volunteers 10 minutes to get a young girl's name, and another 10 minutes to get her address.

'During that time three males, all independent of one another, came up and offered to take care of her. Who knows where she would have ended up had our volunteers not been there?”

Get Smart also runs a specific programme targeting at-risk primary school girls aged 8-10 to help build their self-esteem and life skills, and Stuart regularly speaks to local high school groups and training institutions about goal setting plus drug and alcohol-related harm.

'Research shows just disseminating information about drugs and alcohol has little to no value,” he explains.

'However, if you climb into their personal lives and talk about what they want to do and achieve in future, then position drugs and alcohol as a possible saboteur, then they see those subsequent messages in a totally different light.”

He says BayTrust's support has been invaluable, and the $20,000 would help pay for staff wages and office expenses.

'The role of BayTrust over a number years in supporting our operational costs has been enormous,” says Stuart.

'We are so grateful for their involvement in helping us identify where we're making a difference and how we can build capacity in the various services that we offer.”

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