Who’s next? Nominations are open for the Big Little Sponsorship 2024!

The Big Little Sponsorship is back for the fifth time, looking for two deserving primary schools across the nation to receive one of two $10,000 sports grants. Alongside All Blacks legend Keven Mealamu and our friends at Eden Park, we’re now opening the search to find two primary schools who could do with a helping hand in 2024.

About the Big Little Sponsorship

Our Big Little Sponsorship celebrates our partnership with Eden Park by championing grassroots sport in schools, giving something back to the communities around us. Last year, we asked New Zealanders to nominate local primary schools in need of a boost to help their students reach their sporting potential. Nominations gave primary schools across the nation an opportunity to win one of two $10,000 sports grants.

A record number of nominations

The 2023 Big Little Sponsorship broke our existing record for nominations, with over 4,600 submissions from 1,201 schools across the country. The difficult task of selecting our two winners lay with our panel of judges, made up of representatives from AA Insurance, our campaign ambassador and former All Black Keven Mealamu, and Eden Park’s Chief Executive Nick Sautner.

Our 2023 winners

After much deliberation, our judging panel chose Arakura School in the North Island and East Gore School in the South Island as our 2023 Big Little Sponsorship winners. Arakura School stood out to our judges because they demonstrated the importance of sports and play to help children self-regulate emotions, with a focus on inclusion by providing sensory play equipment for their neurodiverse students.

“Parents have come up to me and told me that they are grateful for all the work we do for sports at the school because their kids aren't coming home and watching tv/playing video games anymore, they're wanting to train for their sport.” – Arakura School nomination, 2023. East Gore School impressed our judges with their nominations that spoke volumes to their involvement with the local community and passion for sports.

“Our school grounds are often used by the community outside of school and you often see families getting active together. We have just installed one rugby post. The fundraising for this took several years and was very exciting when we were able to install it.” – East Gore School nomination, 2023.

Both schools received a $10,000 sports grant to help overcome any challenges they face when organising sports activities for their students and community.

A second prize of $2,000 and a third prize of $1,000 was also awarded for each island. Eskdale School and Franz Josef Glacier School were selected as our second prize winners and Pakowhai School and Russley School as our third prize winners.

Our grand prize winners have been added to the new Big Little Sponsorship Hall of Fame at Eden Park, immortalised on the walls of New Zealand’s national stadium.

Give your local primary school a chance to win!

Now it’s your turn to give your local primary school a chance to win our Big Little Sponsorship 2024. Nominations will be open from Monday 19th February to Sunday 24th March. To nominate your chosen primary school, enter your details in the nomination form. Answer all the questions giving as much detail as possible; the more information you can provide to support your nomination, the better our judges can understand the school.

To help you with your submission, here are the criteria our judges use to find our winners:

• Eligibility: any primary school in New Zealand that hasn’t previously won a grant can be nominated and apply. One $10,000 prize will be given to a North Island school, and one to a South Island school.

• Strength of nomination: our judges will be looking at how many unique nominations each primary school receives and evaluating the primary school’s need for support, so we can make sure the sponsorship has the biggest impact.

• Value of winning: clearly outlining how a sports grant could help the primary school overcome any challenges they face when organising sports activities will help make your nomination stand out.

• The importance of sport: as a sports grant, we want to make sure we award the grant to primary schools that value sport and the role it plays for children at school.

So submit your nominations and spread the word to give your community a helping hand and reward your local primary school with our Big Little Sponsorship 2024!*

_{*Terms and conditions apply. For more information please visit: https://www.aainsurance.co.nz/big-little/big-little-terms}