National Volunteer Week: The hard calls for those saving lives, on the job and off it too
Sunday, 14 June 2026
This week is National Volunteer Week.
New research by Community Foundations of Aotearoa NZ found that 75% of Kiwis gave their time in the past year.
The survey found in any given four-week period, 61% were volunteering formally through an organisation.
The survey also found 35% volunteered informally, by helping neighbours, showing up for whanau, or organising for a community.
Henry van Tuel can still vividly remember the day he had to make the worst call in his 25 years as a volunteer with the Coast Guard.
“I don’t mind if you quote me, but it was shit,” the Hawke’s Bay based skipper said.
On Monday, June 24, two years ago, Elwood Higgins, Taina Sinoti, and Damien Macpherson, were reported missing off the Mahia coast while fishing for bluefin tuna.
The conditions were so bad, with a howling wind and roiling sea, initial searches couldn’t find them, and van Tuel decided his Coast Guard crew would stay in port.
Then a log carrier reported seeing two of the men, so van Tuel and his crew headed out.
What was normally a two hour trip to where the men were spotted was instead a battle against walls of water and after four hours of slog, with three hours still to go before they were in the search area, van Tuel asked his crew if they felt it was safe to carry on.
“You have to look after your crew first, your boat second, and then the people you are trying to help, because without a crew and a boat you can’t do anything,” van Tuel says.
“Normally when we head for home there is a lot of banter on board, but that day it was very quiet. We knew we had left people out there.”
If you are lost at sea, or merely broken down, those coming to rescue you will have walked off the job, or come from a warm bed or the couch, whether that be the Coast Guard, Surf Life Saving or Search and Rescue (SAR).
Van Tuel is one of 2051 Coast Guard volunteers across 62 units nationwide, covering our coastline as well as major lakes and rivers.
From July last year to May this year, Coast Guard volunteers have responded to 2603 incidents and assisted 6284 people, across more than 224,000 hours.
It takes commitment, a good employer and an understanding family.
Closer to shore and Surf Life Saving NZ has 18,000 members, 4600 of whom are lifeguards while the others play important roles behind the scenes - coaches, fundraisers, committee members, maintenance support, and those who seem to be always running a sausage sizzle.
Surf life guards patrol 106 locations from 74 clubs. In the 2025-2026 season those volunteers, many of whom are teenagers, made 726 rescues and 887 assists, along with 185 searches. They stepped in with preventative action almost 48,000 times.
As well as patrolling the beach, 600 life guards also volunteer for Search and Rescue (SAR) where they are increasingly used in flood call outs. In the last year they’ve saved 189 people, with another 77 assists across 146 searches - that’s a call out every 2.5 days.
SLSNZ National SAR Manager Matt Cairns says this year’s seen 287 call outs already as the SAR operations move away from just coastal work to flooding and fresh water events at rivers and lakes.
Imogen Doyle is part of Surf’s SAR squad in Dunedin that is 60% women and mostly in their late 20s and 30s.
“We are definitely on the younger side and we were helped by two trailblazers, the Laughton sisters (Steph and Carla) who did a lot for women in this space. Our current group is very supportive.”
They are good for numbers at the moment, “but you can never be complacent”.
“We have to support and develop our current members and it is a constant piece of work to bring others through. You can never take your foot off the pedal.”
The rewards, she says, are fantastic. “You work with people from all sorts of backgrounds and who live interesting lives. And SAR about giving back to the community. We help when someone is in dire straits.”
Doyle, 29, is a Teaching Fellow at the Otago University School of Geography and Geology and, perhaps fittingly, is an expert in severe weather.
It suggests she should have a sixth sense when it comes to SAR callouts, but they have caught her on the hop.
“My phone went off in the library, which wasn’t ideal,” she laughs, remembering the call out to help five people on board a boat that had run aground as they tried to cross the bar near the Owaka River mouth in the Catlins while returning from a day of fishing.
“I’m terrified it will happen during a lecture,” she said of a page that is a piercing siren.
If it does, she will probably decline the summons, initially at least, which is always a chance for anyone in a volunteer service.
“It’s why we have a big team. It never feels great to say no, but sometimes you just can’t go.”
And sometimes, you have to turn back.
National Volunteer Week begins today, read about it here.