FOR District Council of Grant citizen of the year Grant Fensom, volunteering is just what country people do.
The Port MacDonnell resident said there was generally a good spirit of volunteering in his community.
“A lot of people do stuff like that (volunteer) down here; they don’t wait to be asked, they just get stuck in,” he said.
Grant said much of his volunteering spirit came from his upbringing.
“My mother and father taught me a hell of a lot, probably not by saying anything but by doing,” he said.
A key memory from his childhood comes from the aftermath of Ash Wednesday.
“Dad was part of Apex and he went out to Kalangadoo and helped farmers clean up, then he chopped wood on weekends afterwards to raise money,” he said.
“If you want to teach your own kids, get out there and show them.”
Grant is a former captain of the Port MacDonnell Country Fire Service, a life member of the local football club, involved in Little Athletics and more recently joined as an Ambulance SA volunteer. He is also the School Council chairman for Allendale East.
His two daughters, aged 15 and 18, are following in his footsteps, and are also involved in the football club, Little Athletics and the CFS.
“They’re too old to do it themselves but they still want to go along and help out,” he said. “They do it because they want to.”
In his role at the CFS, Grant has been pushing to get the next generation involved in a time when many volunteers are ageing.
“A few years ago I took some time and asked how to get young people involved,” he said.
He began working with the local school to run a week long, nationally-accredited basic firefighting course aimed at 15-year-old students.
“Then if they want to join a brigade, any brigade, they can,” he said.
The program has been running for about five years and Grant said it had been fairly successful.
“It’s a kickstarter,” he said. “We hopefully get a few volunteers each year – at least we’ve tried.”
He estimates there have been 15 to 20 students that have gone on to volunteer with different brigades in that time.
“To me, that (age group) is where we’ve got to aim our focus,” he said.
An engineer by trade, Grant and his family took on a new challenge about four years ago by buying the local former Customs House at Port MacDonnell, to keep it in local hands.
They continued the renovations and operate it as a bed and breakfast.
Grant said they also try to give back by holding functions for local groups, such as the school and charities like the Leukaemia Foundation, as well as open days.
