25 and out at the Youth Trust for Russ

The spotlight was turned on Senior Constable Russ Smith, trustee of the Marlborough Youth Trust for the past 25 years, when he was honoured for his service on Thursday morning.

Russ is stepping away from the role since the youth-focused organisation was founded, and many from across the Marlborough community and beyond made the time to celebrate the NZ Order of Merit recipient.

“You have been so humble, but today we take delight in honouring your time, energy, wisdom, care and integrity in your 25 years serving Marlborough Youth Trust and giving young people courage and confidence,” says former Youth Trust manager Jo Lane. “Russ’s quote was, ‘we can’t do anything without trust and positive relationships’, and he has always led by example.

“There are many fun, crazy, bizarre, sad, scary, out the gate, awesome stories within the youth sector but Russ knows the best stories are not immediate KPIs, but the long-term view in nurturing youth as they go with their positive development tips for life.

“Your calmness with the outside the square things that have happened has been the anchor of the Trust,” adds Jo. Marlborough Pacific Trust youth worker Sonitani Kula and Marlborough Youth Trust youth worker Maxine Sweeney both said Russ’s faith in them made their own journey to community-focused work easier. “It’s hard to speak about Russell without acknowledging the opportunities that he’s created for me,” says Soni. “Youth work has been a lifelong dream career of mine and to be able to enter it at such a young age was only possible because there was a village that was willing to stand behind me that was led by Russ.

“I will be forever grateful for the support, and there’s a lot of young people that are here today because of Russ. You’ve always made me feel supported and heard, which, believe me, isn’t something that I’ve taken for granted and your guidance has meant the world to me,” continued Maxine.

“Seeing a police officer when I first came into this space, it was a little bit scary as most people don’t exactly feel that relaxed around police, but from day one you were approachable, down to earth, understanding and easy to talk to.

“Marlborough Youth Trust stands today on solid ground because of your efforts over the years and on behalf of the youth workers from today, the youth workers from yesterday, and the youth workers for tomorrow, I express how valuable you are.”

MC Michael Heath compared Russ to the Youth Trust’s koru symbol. “The koru is Russ - you’ve nurtured so many to go from tightly coiled potential into being an open fern.

“If you look around Marlborough, not just in this room, but lots of voices who couldn’t be here or probably don’t even appreciate the impact that you’ve had directly or through the people you’ve empowered to build this culture in a community and an awesome centre.”

Russ said that at the time the trust was set up, there were “all sorts of moves made to engage with youth and find out what they felt was missing from Marlborough”.

“It’s certainly not one person’s work, and I love the fact that the vision that we had for the trust is shared by all these people and put into effect still 25 years on. We went through a whole succession of different things to try and prove our case in terms of the needs for youth that weren’t here at the time.

“Through quite a bit of blood, sweat, tears and great support from our mayor at the time Alistair Sowman, we made sure that things happened that wouldn’t have happened otherwise. There’s lots of people in the background who did really cool stuff for us and never really got recognized, so it’s a huge thank you to all those people now.

“I can step away from the trusteeship in good conscience knowing that it is in really good hands, but I’ll be there in the background as a friend helping where I can,” Russ promises.