“Ordinary People Extraordinary Acts”.

The small group at Project Recognise have over 100 years combined service in emergency response roles. Many times in these roles we have worked along side volunteers and civilians who have given up their time to assist.

Whether this is in times of disaster, searching for missing people, retrieving people from hazardous areas, or in evacuation centres and community hubs.

We see you and we appreciate you.

The thing is… we get paid for what we are doing, we receive our acknowledgments through honours and awards, we go home when our shift is completed and we get the media coverage to say what good work we did.

Not so the volunteers and civilians who put their hand up.

We wanted to fill that void. So, we tossed a few ideas around as to how we could change the Status Quo.

Welcome to Project Recognise.

In the recent cyclone and flood event in Far North Queensland we saw the best of human nature come out which only reinforced our resolve. The emergency services were swamped with tasks. We saw hundreds of civilans put their hand up to assist. There were people assisting others prior to the event, by filling sandbags, tieing down property and checking on neighbours.

During the event there were over 200 people that needed to be rescued from rising flood waters, many on the roofs of houses. Too many for emergency services to handle themselves, once again we saw the volunteers put themselves in danger to assist.

Then there was after the event. We saw the establishment of community hubs, once again manned by volunteers, where people could go to acquire food, clothing and other necessities or just for moral support.

“The famous mud army kicked in to assist with cleaning and removal of damaged furniture. The work was just amazing and too much to mention here.”

Then there were the organisations and businesses, who donated money and household goods, provided food and clothing, as well as much needed specialist skills. From the local kebab store to five star hotels, from independent service stations to the Red Cross. This suppprt continued days, weeks and even months after the event.

We are Apolitcal and have no political aspirations. We do however ask our federal, state and local representatives to acknowledge our community warriors by way of a certificate of merit and accompanying letter.

Why do we do this?

Well, studies show that receiving gratitude is associated with a host of mental and physical benefits. Gratitude helps people feel more positive emotions, relish good experiences, improve their health, deal with adversity, and build strong relationships.

Gratitude and the response it causes helps to bring down your blood pressure, heart rate and breathing to help with overall relaxation.

Receiving gratitude can also improve sleep, mood and immunity. It can also decrease depression, anxiety, difficulties with chronic pain and risk of disease.

This is in stark contrast to todays social media

Even more important, and this is what we do get out of it, extending gratitude to someone else has exactly the same effects as receiving gratitude. And that’s what we have to gain, Recognising and acknowledging people in our community for their great work, makes us feel good.

But Project Recognise is not just here for times of disaster or special events. Project Recognise will be around all year for all types of recognition. We envisage Project Recognise, at some stage go nation-wide, so that we can honour and acknowledge everyone.

But, we cant do it all on our own.

We need your support to identify those people who are our community heroes, It maybe something brave or courageous you see, it may be a great mentor, a community volunteer or someone who has help you overcome a terrible time in your life.

We want to hear about it, we want to acknowledge and recognize their efforts. Nominate someone now and we can take it from there.

Once again.

“We see you and appreciate you. Ordinary People, Extraordinary Acts”