Dubbo PCYC has the foundation for community

This article was sponsored by Newcastle Permanent

Joey Watson can be found at Dubbo PCYC three afternoons each week, training in the club’s boxing gym. It’s the camaraderie of being part of a team and meeting new friends that has him hooked on the sport as much as the health benefits.

“We get to meet a lot of people and it’s a good sport for fitness and self-defence,” Joey says.

“It’s good at the PCYC, there are lots of kids there and everybody is nice, nobody is against each other.

“We travel to tournaments together in the bus as a team. We’ve been to Umina (on the Central Coast) and up to Queensland.”

Joey, 12, has been competing for two years and even won a competition. He idolises Australian boxer Jeff Horn, who defeated Manny Pacquioa to claim the WBO Welterweight title in 2017.

“One of my goals is to be Australian champion,” Joey says proudly.

Mark Nuttall, Dubbo PCYC Club Manager, said the club’s main goal was to empower young people like Joey to be good citizens.

“The PCYC’s members had benefited greatly from the purchase of a new van,” Mr Nuttall said.  

“The van has been a god-send for our boxing team, especially,” Mr Nuttall said. “They’re going away, basically, every second weekend now.

“We also have high-level gymnasts who travel every month and our new eight-seater bus is just perfect for them. So the vehicle saves us money, time, and the fact that kids can travel together as a team means they can really bond.”

Mr Nuttall said the club’s police officers worked with young people to help them develop life skills, and they also use the vehicle to pick up participants.

The vehicle that’s used by so many people at Dubbo PCYC was donated by Newcastle Permanent Charitable Foundation.

The Foundation’s chair, Phil Neat, said he was delighted to see the vehicle grant had allowed the club to help so many young people.

“Prior to receiving our grant, PCYC Dubbo was working with vehicles that were more than 10 years old and this was affecting the club’s ability to engage young people,” he says.

“The Foundation assists community initiatives and projects that directly address disadvantage, marginalisation or isolation in health, youth development and social wellbeing for our communities. And this van has met those goals.”

Newcastle Permanent Charitable Foundation provides more than $1.5 million in grants each year to address social disadvantage in local communities throughout regional NSW.

Life Education NSW has been another beneficiary of the Foundation’s grants. Life Education NSW operate Mobile Learning Centres that deliver health and wellbeing programs to primary and pre-schools.

CEO Life Education NSW Kellie Sloane said the foundation had supported various projects undertaken by the organisation over the past seven years.

“The first grant we received subsidised fees for schools in the Clarence Valley, and more recently the grants funded the tow trucks that move our Life Education Mobile Learning Centres around the Central Tablelands, Hunter Valley and Central Coast,” Ms Sloane says.

“These grants help us deliver Healthy Harold’s preventative health education to more than 32,000 children in 125 schools across those regions and up to 120,000 students over the next 10 years.”

The foundation was created as a gift to the community by the Newcastle Permanent Building Society, a trusted banking institution for 115 years. Newcastle Permanent CEO Terry Millett said the foundation was established with an endowment from the organisation.

“In 2003, in addition to our extensive community sponsorship and support program, Newcastle Permanent Building Society established the Newcastle Permanent Charitable Foundation with a $30 million endowment,” he says.

“This was our way of saying thank you to the community for being customers of Newcastle Permanent for the past 100 years.

“When establishing the foundation we were conscious that many community-based initiatives and endeavours slipped under the radar of the normal corporate sponsorship umbrella, so we designed criteria for grant-making that allowed many charitable groups and their volunteers to benefit.”

For more information about the Newcastle Permanent Charitable Foundation visit www.newcastlepermanent.com.au/charitable-foundation

This article was sponsored by Newcastle Permanent