Souths Cares' Katelyn Farrell Wins One Community Award

Souths Cares Learn Earn Legend! School to Work Transition Program graduate Katelyn was the joint winner of the ARLC Young Indigenous Learn Earn Legend! Award at the One Community Awards held at the Sydney Town Hall last night (Monday).

Katelyn, sister of Rabbitohs NRL player Dylan Farrell, was the joint winner of the alongside Dylan Nicholls from the Gold Coast Titans' Beyond Tomorrow program.

Katelyn Farrell, 18, was nominated by the Souths Cares Learn Earn Legend! Schools to Work Transition program for her outstanding leadership and commitment to education.

She is currently studying for her HSC at Matraville Sports High School, where she is School Vice-Captain.

She grew up on the Jerrinja Mission and she continues to spend much of her time there working in the homework centre mentoring the local children.

Katelyn hopes to study at university next year to become a Primary School Teacher.

To learn more about Katelyn, please click here.

Dylan Nicholls, 19, was nominated by the Gold Coast Titans’ ‘Titans Beyond Tomorrow’ program.

A member of the Tweed-Byron Indigenous community, he was consistently recognised at Kingscliff High School as an outstanding sportsman and student, placing in the top 5% of NSW students during his final year in 2011.

Dylan is currently completing a Bachelor of Medicine, Surgery and Science at the University of Queensland to further improve the education and health outcomes for Indigenous Australians.

Both Katelyn and Dylan will receive a $2500 education scholarship each from the Australian Rugby League Commission to support their studies.

In other awards handed out last night, North Queensland's Johnathan Thurston won the Ken Stephen Medal for services to the community.

The full list of award winners is:

Ken Stephen Medal - Johnathan Thurston
Toyota National Volunteer of the Year award - James Sullivan
Harvey Norman Women in League award - Maria Edwards
Telstra One Community Grass-roots Club of the Year – Holy Cross Junior Rugby League Football Club, NSW
AAMI Service to the Community Award – Peter Scott
AAMI Service to Refereeing Award – Richard Johnston
Holiday Inn National Teacher of the Year Award: Primary – Jarrad Folpp, Woodberry Public School, NSW; Secondary – Mark Ippolitio, Kadina High School, Goonellabah NSW
ARLC Young Indigenous League Learn Earn Legend! Award – Katelyn Farrell (Souths Cares Learn Earn Legend! School to Work Transition Program) and Dylan Nicholls (Titans Beyond Tomorrow program).

More than 350 guests, including NRL club officials and players, award nominees, sponsors and prominent politicians, attended the inspiring ceremony at Sydney’s Town Hall to acknowledge and celebrate Rugby League’s unsung heroes.

The One Community Awards launched a spectacular week of Grand Final celebrations for a 2012 season that saw NRL players and ambassadors devote over 29,000 hours to community work and the NRL and its clubs raise more than $1.2million for charity.

“The One Community Awards are an incredibly important event on the Rugby League calendar, highlighting the outstanding and selfless contributions of a wide range of people from NRL players, volunteers, referees, teachers, students and administrators to the grass-roots rugby league fraternity,” said Interim ARLC Chief Executive, Mr Shane Mattiske.

Thurston said he was honoured to receive the Ken Stephen Medal on a night that recognises the game’s unsung heroes.

“It’s been very rewarding to work with the next generation of Indigenous kids who are at school and contemplating what to do next with their lives,” said Thurston.

“Hopefully I’ve been able to use my profile to show these kids how important it is to stay in school and get an education. If you achieve that, then there are so many things you can look at doing as an adult.

“I was the first person in my family to finish year 12 and it’s something that I’m very proud of. No doubt it’s helped me with my football and other areas around footy that I received the education that I did.”