The annual Ascend Aoraki function was held as a gala dinner at the Landing Services building on Saturday.
The Aoraki Foundation was established on August 3, 2009 by founding trustees Sid McAuley, Ken McKenzie, Damon Odey, Nick Noone and Nigel Davenport.
Since its inception, it has helped raise over $12.1million for local projects, including Caroline Bay Aquatic Centre (CBay), an MRI scanner, Suburban Lions Bike Skills Park, Caroline Bay Playground (CPlay) and the Centennial Park Pump Track.
The foundation has also given out over $1.86m in grants and donations.
Chief executive Richard Spackman said the gala night was a way to thank all those involved over the years.
"Building a community foundation is tough — you start with nothing, you have zero income and the goal is to build a spirit in the community of giving.
"It takes time and we were really fortunate that when those five original trustees started this 15 years ago they had a project, which was fundraising for CBay.
"The event has run for the last two years on a smaller scale but we wanted to do something really special this year, so Kirsty [Burnett] twisted my arm and convinced me to do a gala dinner.
"It’s normally free and we’re lucky to get 50 people turn up but this time we charged $85 a ticket and had 160 people turn up. We were humbled at how many people wanted to celebrate this and it was so nice for us to be able to recognise those people at the start who had the foresight to get this going."
The foundation had come a long way since 2009, he said.
"It’s probably only been in the last few years we’ve had the resources to be able to start ramping it up — 2022 was when we switched to having more hours to focus on going out and talking about the foundation.
"A year ago we got Kirsty on board and her role is a lot more outward-focused, and between her and I we are out in the community a lot more and we’ve seen the benefit of that.
"The work that Kirsty and I are putting in right now, it’s unlikely we will even see some of the benefit of it while we are here because it can take a gift in a will 20 years, maybe, before it benefits the community."
Speakers on the night included Janie Annear, Stacey Scott, Nigel Davenport, Ken McKenzie, Nigel Bowen and video messages from Sir Stephen Tindall and James Meager.
Going forward, the foundation was still committed to achieving the goal of funding South Canterbury by $1m a year by 2030, Mr Spackman said.
He was very thankful to the gala’s sponsors, as well as all the donors the foundation had had over the years.
"A community foundation is nothing without its donors."
