Our first foray into the community was an initiative called the 'Community Youth Awards'. This was aimed at the 42 primary and secondary schools in the city of Knox which is our immediate community area. Our reason for this was that the schools are an avenue to reaching out to the majority of local families either directly or indirectly, and in particular the younger families.

We decided that all of our initiatives were to not only be aimed at providing assistance to the community, but also to be about the ideology of community and corporate citizenship. The Community Youth Awards took the form of a 12 week competition in which all schools were invited to choose individual students or groups of students that represented the true essence of community minded thinking. While most competitions and awards are traditionally aimed at recognising either sporting or academic achievements, our awards were aimed at promoting and rewarding those children that selflessly chose to volunteer their own time to benefit others and therefore the community as a whole.
To further our exposure we partnered with the local community newspaper ‘Knox Journal’ and the initiative really flourished. As you can see from the picture, the winning kids even made the front page which was a terrific pump-up for these valuable young community members.

Each week, four profiles of students or groups from different schools would be represented in the local paper in a sub competition called the 'Readers Choice Awards'. Readers could then go to our website and vote for the entry of their choice. The school that received the most votes (adjusted for school population) would win a plaque and $500 for both themselves and also the student or group in question.
At the end of the twelve weeks we would then consider all entries (including those that had not made it into the paper) and a panel of judges would choose the top 20. These top 20 would again be featured in the paper and the top six would then be chosen to share in $20,000 of prizes for both them and their schools. The presentation nights for 2007, 08 and 09 were all at our showroom and were an enormous success.

 

Running Years : 2007, 2008 and 2009

 

The Great Community Raffle is by far the achievement that we are most proud of when it comes to our community initiatives. After three years of running our very successful Community Youth Awards we decided to take stock and re-evaluate what we were doing. We had successfully raised the profile of community minded youth in our local area and we had given away more than $30,000 per year in prizes to kids and their schools, but like any competition of this kind, it couldn’t and didn’t help everyone. Only about 20% of the local schools and organisations won any cash prizes and so many deserving groups were still going unrewarded. Our think tank got in motion and we came up with the Great Community Raffle which solved the problem perfectly.
We decided to use the prize money to buy a Car for the community along with a bunch of other prizes and donate them as raffle prizes!! We would print and distribute raffle tickets to all of our participating schools and groups (around 100 of them) and let them keep all of the money they raised for themselves.

Brilliant !!

We are now in our seventh year and have managed to raise in excess of $800,000 in ticket sales for our raffle recipients. Many of the schools and groups now consider this raffle to be their main fundraising activity each year and we always welcome everyone to our dealership at the conclusion of each draw to celebrate with us in a cheque presenting ceremony. It is a lot harder to run raffles of this magnitude than you might imagine … it certainly caught us by surprise in the first year— so we invited the Rotary Club of Emerald and District to partner with us in these efforts.
This year (2016) we have decided to add a second car into the prize pool which is very exciting for everyone involved.

Sponsored Since: 2010

Contact: Scott Embrey

Chicks for Charity raise community awareness through uniting women from all walks of life. Chicks for Charity encourage all women to harness the power of “giving back”. Organised fundraising events inspire women to donate time, talent and money to better our community. We are proud to be their main sponsor and through our collective efforts we know we are setting a fantastic example for younger generations. To date the chicks have raised in excess of $500,000 and improved the situation and lives of more than 40 individual and group recipients forever.

Several of the girls are either currently working for us at Ferntree Gully Motor Group or are married to people who do. We are so proud to be associated with these inspirational women and we are always looking forward to their next event. Keep an eye on their website and Facebook pages and come along to the next one.

Sponsored Since: 2008

Contact: Kim Rawlings

Web: chicksforcharity.com.au

Knox Basketball Incorporated (KBI) is located in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne and is one of the largest basketball associations in Australia with approximately 1069 teams competing every week in our Junior and Senior domestic competitions.
Knox Basketball was established in 1965 to provide youth from the City of Knox with a sporting and social infrastructure to develop and promote personal, team and social skills in a sporting environment.

The Junior Domestic Competition run by KBI is arguably the largest of its kind in the Southern Hemisphere. Sixteen clubs make up the Junior Domestic Competition, with in excess of 5,500 players. With an average of 700 teams competing each weekend, there is a total of 22 courts that are utilised each week in order for the large number of participants to play. They conduct introductory basketball programs for children of all abilities and ages, school holiday camps and a schools program that visits over 80 schools within the local community.
Once again we saw a perfect opportunity to help out another organisation that is so crucial to the social fabric of our local community … so we took it !!

Web: www.knoxbasketball.com.au/ 

We are very proud to be associated with the Rotary Club of Emerald and District. It was through this event that we were first approached by this club and a beautiful partnership was born. On hearing about this event we jumped at the chance to become a major sponsor since it suited our own ideas about community participation so perfectly given the emphasis on kids. Later we approached the Rotary Club to partner with us in our biggest and most successful initiative yet being the Great Community Raffle. Seven years and seven successful raffles later and we are still going strong together.

The inaugural Kids Fun Run with Thomas was held in October 2003.  The annual Fun Run, has grown to become the signature event for the Rotary Club of Emerald & District Inc. raising over $450,000 since its inception.
In keeping with the Fun Run’s theme of ‘Kids Helping Kids’, all of the money raised has been donated to projects supporting and assisting children.  The Fun Run is structured around 5 events, where kids aged 3 to 8 years, run against Thomas the Tank Engine, and a 6th event sees 9 to 12 year olds running against Puffing Billy.
In recognition of the level of success that the event has enjoyed, in 2010 the ‘Kids Fun Run with Thomas’ was awarded the Cardinia Shire ‘Community Projects Award’ and in 2011 was awarded the Rotary District 9810 ‘Community Service Award’.  Rotary International Awarded the Club with a Significant Achievement Award for the event in 2015.
The $30,000 raised by the 2015 event supported the Cerebral Palsy Education Centre in Glen Waverley.

Sponsored Since: 2003

Contact: Rotary Club of Emerald and District

Web: emeraldrotary.org.au

Cancer Council is a community-funded, community-focused cancer charity dedicated to the defeat of cancer. As Australia’s peak national non-government cancer control organisation,  Cancer Council advises the Australian Government and other bodies on practices and policies to help prevent, detect and treat cancer. They also advocate for the rights of cancer patients for best treatment and supportive care.
Relay For Life is Cancer Council’s most successful fundraising program and its signature community event. Relays offer the perfect venue for Australians to come together to raise funds for Cancer Council’s research, support services and advocacy initiatives.
All funds raised through Relay For Life allow Cancer Council to continue to support cancer Survivors, their Carers and families throughout their cancer journey.
We began our long history of sponsorship back in 2007 with the Relay For Life which we originally did in Berwick, but since becoming involved with Chicks For Charity we have banded together to raise even more money for the cause in the Knox event.

Sponsored Since: 2007

Web: www.relayforlife.org.au

Upwey Ferntree Gully Baseball Club was established in 1963 directly adjacent to the William Angliss Hospital in Upper Ferntree Gully. Over the years it has enjoyed many highs and lows with the peak being in the late 90’s and early 2000’s when it was able to win the VBA Division 1 title three years running.
The club is very Junior-Centric in its thinking and promotes family involvement at all levels. Several tournaments are run at the current grounds on Willow Road at Kings Park including an annual event which sees Junior teams from Japan come and play against our home grown kids. This is a fantastic opportunity for our children to experience not only what they could themselves be capable of with persistence and hard work, but also gives them the opportunity to experience the Japanese culture first hand as the touring children are billeted out to families from within the club.
We are very proud to be partners with this club and look forward to a long and mutually rewarding relationship.
 

Sponsored Since: 2012

Contact: Dwain Richardson (Junior President) – 0418 591 921

Web: www.upweyftgbaseballclub.com

 

 

We have a long and very successful partnership with our good friends at Rowville Netball Club. They proudly lay claim to being Victoria’s biggest netball club with 380+ players covering 41 teams.

Players are from as young as 8 to those young at heart. Such a big club requires a hard working committee made up of a lot of committed volunteers. With 41 teams they need to supply 41 coaches, team managers, scores umpires etc. which means that as a club they are performing a very important function in the community.

With so many families being involved in a healthy sport which is one of the few choices that young girls have in the community compared to the boys we realised that they were also a perfect fit for our Community Partners family.

We have become their major sponsor and we look forward to working with them in the community for many years to come.

Sponsored Since: 2006

Contact: Trevor Crawley & Ross Black

Web: rowvillenetballclub.com.au

 The Wantirna Jetbacks Basketball Club was formed by a merger of the Waverley Jets and the Waverley Redbacks in the Waverley Competition in the early 1980's. The club competed as the Waverley Jetbacks.
As the Waverley area "grew up", younger players became hard to find so the Club approached the Knox Gardens Primary School and formed 11 boys and girls teams.
The club originally played half its teams in the Waverley Competition and half in the Knox Competition. As the club grew in size and the players increasingly came from the Knox area, the Club moved all its teams to the Knox Competition and changed its name to the Wantirna Jetbacks.
Wantirna Jetbacks boast over 30 Junior Domestic teams in the Knox competition. Ferntree Gully Nissan were instrumental in starting the ‘Junior Jetbacks’ which helped not only the Jetbacks but also Junior Basketball in general within the Knox area.
 

Sponsored Since: 2007

Contact: Cindy Banjanin

Web: www.wantirnajetbacks.com/

The Upwey Tecoma Cricket Club competes in the Ferntree Gully District Cricket Association and fields teams in the senior and junior sections.  Once we became aware of how strong they were in their efforts to be a highly committed community club, we jumped at the opportunity to welcome them into our family as our newest community partner.

The club has a wonderful inclusive culture and is very family focused with strong core community values. The club facilities are amongst the best in the surrounding areas both from a playing and social perspective. They field junior teams from Under 10 through to under 17 as well as a thriving MILO cricket squad. The juniors consist of boys and girls and as a club they strongly support female involvement in cricket.

Sponsored Since: Sep 2014

Contact: Alistair Wood

Web: upweycc.com.au

Boronia Bolters Little Athletics Club are one of the 11 clubs that compete at the Knox Little Athletics Track in Knoxfield. Little Athletics caters for 5 – 15 year olds with Summer and Winter Cross Country Seasons included. In the summer season children can compete in Region & State, Relays, Track & Field and State Multi events.

Since we are so strongly committed to anything involving our kids getting outside as much as possible and getting involved with community clubs, the decision to partner up with the Bolters was an easy one to take.

Along with our good friends and community partners Barry Plant Rowville, we purchased a Marquee for them allowing the kids to have shade on those hot Saturdays and we also financially are their major sponsor.

Sponsored Since: 2007

Contact: Wayne Preston

Web: boronia.klac23.org.au

Rowville Primary School is a dynamic learning community that has at its core, positive and constructive relationships where the expectation is high… learning is relevant, deep and real… where the structure and support facilities progress for every student. There is a strong emphasis on striving for personal best and on the holistic development of the student.

Students at Rowville Primary are confident, competent and well-rounded individuals who are encouraged to develop a love of learning together with the skills, resources and motivation to fully experience lifelong education.

Our journey with the Rowville Primary School began back in 2007 when they first approached us to sponsor their Boys Aerobics Team in the Australian National Titles. The boys were terrific and placed in the top 5 and we were very proud to have made their adventure possible. Since then we have continued to work together as partners supporting our local community.

Sponsored Since: 2007

Contact: Tania Challis

Web: www.rowvilleps.vic.edu.au/ 

FITLIFE is a local non-discriminatory Fitness Training Centre incorporating group boxing, boot camps, tailored classes and Personal Training sessions to suit all ages, genders and abilities to help everyone achieve their health, fitness and weight-loss goals.
FITLIFE is all about promoting and supporting a fit, safe and healthy community.
 

Sponsored Since: 2015

Contact: Tommy Hopkins

Web: www.fit-life.com.au