Mr Hewitt is listed along with fellow local Mrs Patricia Elkin on the 2022 Australian Day Honours List.

He is no stranger to receiving accolades for his dedication to community service, but this one is perhaps one of his most significant.

The St Vincent de Paul Society stalwart was one of more than 5500 people nominated for a national Australian of the Year Award in 2021 (a year with a record number of nominees), and he received the Australian Senior Citizen of the Year Award from Armidale Regional Council in 2017.

Mr Hewitt also received the Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice (Cross of Honour - a decoration of the jurisdiction of the Pope) in early 2021.

Then in September 2021, he found out he was nominated to receive an OAM on Australia Day, although the investiture will not be until April.

A co-founder of Freeman House 42 years ago, with more than five decades of membership with St Vincent de Paul, Mr Hewitt still volunteers his services.

Freeman House is a drug and alcohol rehabilitation centre that offers crisis accommodation to the homeless. In the late 1970s, Mr Hewitt and other volunteers noticed a growing issue with homeless people sleeping in Central Park.

"At that time, the police used to go around and collect the alcoholics and put them in cells because there was nowhere else for them to go - and that was a terrible thing," Mr Hewitt said.

As part of the St Vincent De Paul Society, he bought an old guesthouse in Armidale where the men could stay, have a shower, be reclothed, receive food and counselling.

And while Freeman House was a milestone achievement in his service career, Mr Hewitt says he spent much more time doing practical things for members of the Catholic community.

While at school in De La Salle College, he took every kind of manual arts course he could and this set him up for his career with St Vincent de Paul.

"By the time I got to the leaving certificate, I was pretty versed in woodwork and metalwork and welding and that sort of thing," Mr Hewitt said.

"And then when I joined Vinnies, I became the kind of Vinnies' handyman, the bloke that went around to the old ladies and changed the light globes, mowed the lawn and cut the wood.

"And that that in fact is a more major part of my St Vincent's work than Freeman House is."

Mr Hewitt said his real social work was visiting people in their homes, and he still does it.

"That's a big part of why I'm getting this award," Mr Hewitt said

"I feel honoured and excited - I am on top of the world."

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