Community Hero: Shane Brown

The Franklin Times is recognising the many wonderful people in our community who go out of their way to help others with our regular Community Hero award.

If you know someone who’s doing amazing things in our community, please email 50 to 100 words describing why they deserve this recognition, highlighting specific actions they’ve taken to benefit our community, with your and their contact details and a high-resolution photo of them, if possible, to editor@franklintimes.co.nz.

Be sure to include details about what they’ve been doing, the impact they’ve made, and how long they’ve been involved in these efforts.

The award is sponsored by Little Ed Pukekohe. Recipients will receive a $50 Little Ed voucher and will be featured in our newspaper and on our website. We award one Community Hero in each edition of our newspaper, published twice a month.

This week’s recipient is Shane Brown, who was nominated by Tayla McCamish who writes:

“Shane works for a charity called BigBuddy. Not only is he a volunteer for this charity, but he recently took up the role of team leader to support matching young boys with male role models and mentors to help provide that strong male role model every young boy needs in their lives.

“The reason some of these boys don’t have fathers can be very sad, and Shane encounters many mums who are trying to do the absolute best for their sons. Shane has his own little buddy called Isaac. They have been matched since Isaac was 11, and he’s turning 19 this year.

“I’ve seen the positive impact that Big Buddy can have on a young boy, and at the age of 22, when he decided to do this for a little boy, I could see that he was going to make a massive difference in his life. How many 22-year-olds would do that for a young boy? Nearly 9 years on, Isaac was a ring-bearer at Shane’s wedding and is now known as Uncle Ice to his son.

“He is a local hero because he is doing what he can for the community and supporting young boys without fathers.”