“You can really see you’re making a difference” 

Land SAR volunteer Sara Robinson during helicopter training

More than 3,000 trained volunteers throughout the country support Land SAR’s missions – providing critical land-based search and rescue resources to help the New Zealand police and the public.

Sara Robinson, Senior Banking Advisor at Westpac Invercargill, has been a volunteer for Southland Land SAR for the past four years.

“I was looking for something I could do in the community and my brother suggested I get involved in Land SAR – he’s the police search and rescue coordinator for Southland.

“We have some fantastic operators down here who just make such a difference to people’s outcomes,” Sara says.

Credit Review Manager Vanessa Peterson also volunteers for Southland Land SAR, something she’s been doing for the past two years. She and Sara both work as part of incident management teams.

“Depending on the day or need we could be involved in everything from intelligence collection to planning, team management and deployment or logistics, with call-outs happening any time of day or night,” Vanessa says. 

Sara Robinson (left) and Vanessa Peterson

Paul Bonini is based in Christchurch, where he’s Westpac’s Regional Facilities and Operations Manager. He says his drive to get involved in Land SAR stemmed from his experiences growing up in Scotland.

“I’d done a bit of mountain search and rescue in Scotland and when I moved to Balclutha 20 years ago, Land SAR popped up.”

Paul relocated to Christchurch in 2012 and continued his involvement with LandSAR there. As well as volunteering for incident management teams, he’s served on the local Land SAR committee and is now also involved in Land SAR’s diversity committee, aiming to make it more accessible for more people to volunteer.

“We’ve also been doing a bit of work with local marae – there’s a symbiosis in that local iwi look after the land and we’re searching it. It’s helpful for us to know more about each other.”

Paul Bonini

Each year, all Westpac NZ employees receive two volunteer days to use in their communities supporting causes of their choice. Sara, Vanessa and Paul all use their volunteer days for their work with Land SAR. They’re also able to use Emergency Services volunteer leave when they’re involved in Land SAR searches – Westpac provides this leave to employees involved in supporting these services.

All three say being involved in Land SAR is an incredibly meaningful way to give back to their communities.

“We’ve got a fantastic group of volunteers in Southland. You can really see that you’re making a difference,” Sara says.

If you’re interested in learning more about Land SAR or volunteering in your region, visit www.landsar.org.nz