The Trust, in partnership with the Western Bay of Plenty Police, provides many programmes to increase and support involvement of youth in community activities. It provides these programmes through the three organisations Blue Light, Dare and the Police Youth Development (The Great Pathway) Programme.

Last year the Trust's youth programmes touched the lives of 15,000 young people in the Western Bay.

Finding funding to keep the multitude of youth activities ticking over is the task of Trust operations manager Wendy Nicholls.

In the past two years she has been thrilled to gain a total of $15,000 from the Acorn Foundation to help with Blue Light programmes.

“Acorn has been fantastic in helping us fund our work with youth – it is a constant scrape to find funding for our programmes each year. We need about $60,000 annually to fund wages and activities, so every dollar we receive from community organisations is invaluable,” says Wendy.

Acorn Distributions and Finance Officer Margot McCool, says Tauranga Blue Light was selected for funding because it is a proven organisation addressing important problems among local young people.

“Blue Light has shown that their programmes are having a positive impact. The results they are achieving through their youth drink-drive programmes are particularly encouraging as they are having a preventative effect, rather than picking up the pieces after the damage has been done,” says Margot.

Acorn has just celebrated signing 100 funds since it began in 2003 with an anticipated value of $50 million. More than $700,000 has been distributed to community organisations since Acorn’s inception.

The Acorn Foundation encourages people to leave a gift in their will or to make donations during their lifetime to benefit the local community forever.

Te Aranui Trust operations manager Wendy Nicholls is grateful for the Acorn Foundation's help to run Blue Light programmes in the Western Bay