PORTLAND Basketball Association (PBA) and Portland Surf Life Saving Club have received an influx of cash via the Commonwealth Bank’s Community Donations program, receiving $500 and $250 respectively.
The program saw employees at the bank select these two organisations as the ones who would go in the running for the top prize, before a community vote was held to determine the winner and runner-up between the two organisations.
PBA president David Johnson said the club is “absolutely thrilled” to have received this extra funding thanks to community support.
“For the CBA to offer up the money and for the community to get amongst it was a terrific idea,” Johnson said.
“You might say it’s a reflection of how we’ve been able to develop a strong association which is doing good things within the community.”
Johnson said the association hasn’t made set plans yet for where they expect the money to go, although he said there are a couple of top priorities.
“I think two areas of focus are our juniors and our referees… we feel we’ve got a decent senior program that’s reasonably well-funded,” he said.
“There’s always more to do, but I think the question we need to ask is what can we do with our juniors, they’re the future of the association after all.”
As for the Portland Surf Life Saving Club, administrator Gareth Bowater said this is the sort of funding the club “needs” to continue offering the programs it does.
“We want to continue to provide training for the Nippers program, as well as promoting our level of community engagement,” Bowater said.
“Getting the funding and having the club out there in the paper and on social media all helps us attract new people.”
Bowater said the club is beginning to ramp up its activities ahead of the summer months, with a handful of events in the pipeline ahead of the start of Nippers in November.
“We don’t have exact dates yet, but we’ll be hosting some come and try events soon so that kids can come down and see if it’s something they want to do without having to make a full commitment.”
