Lego, a well-known building block toy, has become a symbol for creativity and community spirit for Brightwater School. Students have used it to help win an award and, thanks to a group of resourceful dads, Lego is now available to every student within the school.
“We were a group of dads who started getting together once a month … we decided to use the time to come up with ideas of how to help out the community,” says Kimble Rawson, Brightwater Fathers Group.
The group of dads have a direct link to the school. All 12 of them either have a child attending, going to attend or has attended the school. So, it was deemed appropriate that the first part of the community to be supported was the school.
The result of a quiz night in which they raised $860 was gifted to Brightwater School along with some further donations which brought the total up to $1000. It was then up to Brightwater School to decide how they were going to use the proceeds.
They chose Lego so all 14 classrooms could have access to a box to learn building and creativity skills. The group will continue to raise money for different parts of the community in need.
There was another side to the Lego story which came down to creativity.
“Our students helped Brightwater win a street design award run throughout New Zealand,” says Todd Brodie, vice-principal of Brightwater School.
Living Streets Aotearoa runs a biannual competition that acknowledges projects within New Zealand where thought and innovation have been given to walking.
One of the categories is School Projects of which Brightwater Consultation and the students from Brightwater school were the winners.
Brightwater Consultation was part of the Tasman District Council’s Ellis Street, Brightwater, upgrade and redesign project, which is currently underway.