Activ lends a hand with its Isuzus

For over 65 years, Activ Foundation in Western Australia has been providing support to people living with disability, helping improve countless lives.

According to Colin Kirkness, Site Co-ordinator for Activ’s horticultural and gardening division (Activ Property Care), it’s rewarding work.

Colin says that Activ is always looking for new opportunities to provide additional assistance, be that through innovative support or creating meaningful employment opportunities for people living with disability.

And it is out of this vision that the organisation’s Property Care arm arose.

“We identified a demand for property care and recognised this as a window of opportunity for people living with disability,” Colin explained.

“Starting with offering window-cleaning and line marking services, the range of services have evolved to include more ground-keeping and maintenance services. From there, we’ve grown to handle commercial grounds maintenance, lawn mowing, as well as any kind of landscape maintenance.

“We service the southwest area of Western Australia, with crews based in Geraldton, Kalgoorlie, Esperance, Bunbury, Busselton, and the Perth metropolitan area, and we have helped to create job opportunities for around 120 people living with disability.”

As Activ’s Property Care team grows, the company continues to rely on Isuzu trucks to get crews and landscaping equipment to and from job sites.

For the past 20 years, Activ has worked in partnership with Major Motors, their local Isuzu dealer, to ensure their teams are equipped with trucks that can reliably carry everyone and everything necessary to do the job, safely and in comfort.

“Our main priorities when choosing trucks are comfort and reliability, in addition to strength and size to accommodate the gear we carry. And as our crews generally consist of a supervisor and four to five workers, space and comfort in the cab are very important,” Colin said.

In the metropolitan region alone, the company operates 10 Isuzu trucks – two NLS 200 Crew Cabs, two NPR 250 Crew Cabs, three NNR 200 Crew Cabs and three NPR 155 Crew Cabs – in addition to eight other Isuzu vehicles. And in country regions, the company has three Isuzus – one NLS 200 Crew, one NNR 45-150 AMT Crew and one NPR 250 Crew, as well as one other Isuzu vehicle.

And whenever it’s time for Activ Property Care to purchase a new truck, Colin knows all he has to do is call.

Colin said, “We speak to Major Motors about what we’re doing, and they give us a recommendation about what’s going to suit us best.

“From there I’ll get my staff involved and ask if there’s anything they want included in the trucks. The last time we were looking to buy a truck, one of my team members asked for a USB charger to be included in the cab, so we took that to Major Motors and they arranged it.

“Those extra things—they really do make life easier.”

“We get about 10 years out of each of these trucks,” Colin said. “Over the years we’ve had no significant issues with any Isuzu we’ve had. And when we’re getting 10 years of use out of them for the work we do, that’s pretty impressive.”