These outstanding citizens and a community organisation were awarded at a special ceremony on Friday, January 26 as part of Blacktown City’s official Australia Day celebrations.
The awards pay tribute to the outstanding work of local people in the wider Blacktown community nominated across four categories.
• President of Blacktown City Lions Club Rachael Hanlon – Citizen of the Year.
• Law clerk Ebony O’Connor - Young Citizen of the Year.
• Teenager Ariana Goanta - Environmental Citizen of the Year.
• Blacktown City Rotary Club organisers of annual Seniors Christmas Lunch - Community Event of the Year.
Ms Hanlon is described as ‘the heart of Blacktown City Lions’ raising over $400,000 to support disadvantaged local people and delivered $500,000 worth of food donations.
This year, Ms Hanlon helped raise money to purchase a disability play equipment for a playground, a trained therapy puppy and wheelchair friendly outdoor furniture at a park.
The Plumpton Rural Fire Brigade was also supported by Ms Hanlon’s fundraising drive to obtain more than $30,000 worth of fire-fighting equipment.
“I want to say a big thank you to the people who work with me as you are only as good as your team and collectively, we are able to do so much for Blacktown’s residents,” Ms Hanlon said.
Ms O’Connor is a law clerk and award-winning student at Western Sydney University studying for her Bachelor of International Studies and Bachelor of Laws.
She has been named in the Australian Financial Review’s Top 100 Future Leader, a former Blacktown City Council Youth Ambassador and former captain and dux of St. Andrews College in Marayong.
“It is our differences that make us whole and there is no place where this is more representative than Blacktown, a place that accepts all and judges none,” Ms O’Connor earlier said in a citizenship ceremony.
At 17, Miss Goanta has elevated her environmental activism to practical and local level creating a compost bin and composting system that became popular the bins are being used by fellow residents in her entire neighbourhood.
Along with her studies and fundraising for animal welfare charities, the teenager also guides residents how to start their own composting system.
Ariana also runs a Facebook group educating people about our oceans, animals and ways to recycle and reuse materials instead of going into landfills.
The Rotary Club’s annual Seniors Christmas Lunch is a free long table event welcoming residents of nursing homes throughout the city in the past 15 years, recently hosting 280 seniors from 15 homes.
In this event, seniors enjoy a sumptuous Christmas lunch and receive gifts from the Rotary Club, entertainment by professional musicians as well as children from local schools.
Mayor Tony Bleasdale said “Blacktown City’s Australia Day Awards are the most sought-after and prestigious publicly recognised awards in our city.”
For more details about the Australia Day Awards, visit https://www.blacktown.nsw.gov.au/Community/Awards-scholarships-and-competitions/2024-Australia-Day-Awards
