Air force serve community

Sixteen Royal New Zealand Air Force (RNZAF) officer cadets have rolled up their sleeves to support staff and students at Marlborough’s Wairau Valley School to build a community garden and maintain the school grounds.

The officer cadets helped by marking out and preparing an area to be used as a native garden, using old vineyard posts as edges and filling the garden with topsoil. The garden will be used to teach students about the environment. The team also helped with a general tidy up of the house and grounds.

The community work was part of Exercise Aestimatio, the final stage of the RNZAF Officer Commissioning Course at RNZAF Base Woodbourne. The exercise put into action everything the officer cadets have learnt during the 17-week course, including military and leadership skills, while also providing support and assistance to local communities.

Officer Cadet Anthony Raccoon says interacting with Wairau Valley School and having their students’ lead his team showed him how valuable it is to engage and serve the community.

“I enjoyed the community engagement the most during the exercise because of being able to see the result of the team’s hard work and its effect on the school,” he says.

Squadron Leader Lisa Eavestaff says the exercise is an important part of initial officer training, consolidating military skills, operational planning and ensuring students are prepared and ready to integrate into RNZAF operations. The exercise itself involves more than just the community engagement, but is a key part where RNZAF could support locals.

The Officer Cadets will graduate later this month with half of the course moving onto aircrew courses. The rest will take up their first posting early next year.