NSW SES Harden member Peter Christensen has been announced as the 2019 NSW SES Young Volunteer of the Year.
Peter joined the SES at age 18 and has completed a long list of qualifications and training accomplishments in his four years of volunteering.
“I’ve been with the SES going on four years, as I wanted to help my community,” Peter said after returning home from the Sydney awards ceremony.
“The SES have been really good to me - whenever I get a chance, I jump at the opportunity to learn new things.”
NSW SES Harden Deputy Unit Commander Ros Bickford originally nominated Peter for another award, but it was rejected to make way for the new nomination. “When I first nominated him for a Commissioner’s Award, they rang me up and said ‘We’d like you to withdraw your nomination and instead put it in for Young Volunteer of the Year’”, Ms Bickford said.
“I really wanted to highlight Peter’s can-do attitude and an incredible willingness to learn. He came to us as this very young lad of 18 who has some learning difficulties, but he was determined to learn, and he kept asking what new things he could learn. We were more than happy to help him go through all the courses he wanted to undertake. I said in my citation that one day he will make Unit Commander.”
