If it were a regular year, Jenny Hill would have found out about her national award at a big, lavish celebration dinner.
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But while normality continues to be suspended amid the pandemic, Ms Hill was only too happy to be notified of her Australian Environmental Educator of the Year via a nonchalant phone call.
"I was in a meeting with the Australian Association Environmental Educator [judges for the award] on the phone, they had asked me to be the vice president of the organisation," Ms Hill said.
"Then they said, 'oh by the way, you've also won this national award."
In other news:
The award recognises the work Ms Hill did over several years in and around the Blue Mountains area.
"The main thing I did [in the Blue Mountains] was the nature program, where we took children out into nature just to experience it," she said.
"You'd think with the Blue Mountains being a world heritage place, children would be out there all the time, but they weren't."
Having recently returned to her hometown, she is hopeful to re-state her nature-promoting work in Wagga.
"We believe if you can get children - really anyone of any age - out into the bush and just let them be there, that time will change them unbelievably. It gives me goosebumps how much," Ms Hill said.
Leaving her hometown in 1977, over the ensuing years Ms Hill has travelled the country and the globe, learning new ways to preserve and promote the environment.
"I really went all over [the world]. I spent some time in London, I went to Spain, Taiwan, South Africa," she said.
"But the most exciting part was the different parts of Australia I worked in, I went to the Pilbara and to the Arnhem."
Having now received the national honour, Ms Hill hopes will open doors to continue making a big difference for the protection of the environment.
"This acknowledgement [of my work] has just fired me up to speak up and speak out, and create my own platform," Ms Hill said.
"But I don't know [what it will look like], right now I'm more interested in listening than talking [and] finding the change-makers in the community who can model it in the places where you can see it modelled."