{"id":21069,"date":"2025-09-14T01:46:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-14T01:46:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/21069\/"},"modified":"2025-09-14T01:46:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-14T01:46:08","slug":"on-the-up-tauranga-teenager-bakes-desserts-for-homeless-wins-youth-volunteer-award","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/21069\/","title":{"rendered":"On The Up: Tauranga teenager bakes desserts for homeless, wins youth volunteer award"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hannah\u2019s volunteering began through the Student Volunteer Army at school.<\/p>\n

The army formed in Christchurch after the first earthquake in 2010, when thousands of volunteers mobilised to help with the clean-up.<\/p>\n

It grew into a national volunteer network, with programmes at primary, secondary and tertiary education levels.<\/p>\n

Hannah said the army was \u201cquite relevant\u201d at her school and she had been part of it for almost three years.<\/p>\n

Students logged their volunteering hours and received badges for certain milestones.<\/p>\n

\"HannahHannah Richards typically bakes cakes and crumbles for Under the Stars. <\/p>\n

Hannah started baking for Under the Stars about two years ago, typically making cakes or crumbles.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen we\u2019ll drop it off and I\u2019ll pick up more ingredients for the next week.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s usually from ingredients that are donated by supermarkets that are past their best-before \u2026 \u201d<\/p>\n

She also enjoyed baking anything with a \u201ccomplex\u201d recipe for the challenge and \u201cfun of it\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cPastries are quite difficult or … macarons because they take hours.\u201d<\/p>\n

She started baking when she was younger because it was a common activity at home.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s always home-made baked things around.\u201d<\/p>\n

She was not yet sure what she would do after leaving school, but the idea of helping people would inform her career path.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want it to be impactful in some way.\u201d<\/p>\n

She also volunteers on Wednesdays after school at the \u014ct\u016bmoetai Social Supermarket,<\/a> stocking shelves and being a cashier.<\/p>\n

Hannah received the Youth Volunteer Star Award at Western Bay organisation Volunteering Services\u2019 2025 Volunteer Star Awards.<\/p>\n

She said she was nominated by Under the Stars.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t know that I was getting the award. I was just going to support our cause.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was pleasantly surprised. It means a lot that I was recognised, even though I don\u2019t do it for the recognition.\u201d<\/p>\n

Volunteering Services offers support, connection and opportunities for volunteers and community organisations across the Western Bay and surrounding areas.<\/p>\n

Megan Wilson<\/a> is a health and general news reporter for the Bay of Plenty Times and Rotorua Daily Post. She has been a journalist since 2021.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hannah\u2019s volunteering began through the Student Volunteer Army at school. The army formed in Christchurch after the first…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":21070,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2346,22136,22140,13849,17402,14768,2082,22137,681,11551,11113,111,43,139,69,90,22138,1534,22139,1227,4054,223,1529,810,7571,6202,1079],"class_list":["post-21069","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-award","tag-bakes","tag-baking","tag-citys","tag-desserts","tag-every","tag-for","tag-hannah","tag-homeless","tag-hours","tag-kitchen","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-on","tag-richards","tag-saturday","tag-spends","tag-tauranga","tag-teenager","tag-the","tag-three","tag-up","tag-volunteer","tag-wins","tag-youth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21069","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21069"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21069\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21070"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21069"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21069"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21069"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}