From books to the environment: Rotary Port Alfred hard at work
The Rotary Club of Port Alfred began 2023 with the arrival of a 12m container of books from the US in a joint venture between World Books for Humanity and Rotary.
Many of the books were readers and were of a high standard, suitable for pre-school through to high school pupils.
The Rotary Clubs of Kenton, Grahamstown and Grahamstown-Sunset were invited to share in the bounty.
Books were sorted and distributed as far as Riebeeck East, the Transkei and most educational outlets in and around Port Alfred. Not only did we receive the multitude of books but also the container itself, which our club decided to donate to the Rotary Club of Kenton’s NSRI satellite station at Middle Beach, for use as a storage facility for the new craft and quad bike.
The 2023/24 year began in July with the induction of president Carol Oliver. Our first project was the Rotary Running
Wild 18km trail run & 5km fun run, held at Three Valleys in July. This was our first foray into this kind of project, the weather blessed us and it proved very successful.
Funds raised went towards the dental treatment of the lions at Three Valleys, Retreat to Eden and SPCA Port Alfred.
Our membership increased with the induction of Rita de Sousa, Claire Wright and the reinduction of Jo Wilmot. We have a super group of “Friends of Rotary ”— those who love what we do, but do not have time to join. We are lucky to have prospective members in the pipeline.
So far, it has been a busy time with sandwiches delivered to needy crèches in Nemato on a weekly basis. New toilet seats suitable for adults and children are to be installed at Siyazama Educare in New Rest. We held our annual “Collect a Can” project at Rosehill Mall, where we were fortunate to be able to make up some 30+ grocery
hampers which will be distributed for Christmas.
Happy Hours Pre-Primary held an attitude of gratitude week and collected clothing which they donated to our club for distribution to needy youngsters.
Kowie Foundation School made up some beautiful gifts for children and donated them towards our Tree of Joy project.
Carey Webster of Outdoor
Focus cleaned out her playroom and donated a bakkie-load of toys, bicycles and games for distribution.
Our 12th Tree of Joy project which was held at Rosehill Mall from December 10-17, saw us ask the public to choose a recipient card and purchase a gift for a needy child or elderly person.
Once again, we were so fortunate to partner with Pam
Golding Properties who wrapped all the gifts before Rotarians delivered them to the recipients.
We also undertook to take the Ndlambe’s Enviro Champs under Rotary’s wing as our environmental responsibility.
We work with mainly unemployed community members in Nemato, who donate their time.
These people will become environmental ambassadors in their community and will report water leaks, overflowing manholes and clean up illegal dumping, particularly in areas which lead to our river.
At a recent event, reported in ToTT, the team collected almost 100 black bags of litter — Fanie Fouche and Ndlambe Solid Waste supported us with the bags and removal thereof.
Andre Swanepoel of Build It sponsored T-shirts and gloves for this worthy project.
We envision future training in basic plumbing skills and so appeal to qualified people to consider donating their time and expertise to a training session.
Our club has agreed to assist Kuyasa Combined School in sealing the roof of the library hut plus two classrooms with rubberised paint.
In between our projects we do find time for some fun and fellowship. Our district governor visited our club and we awarded Tori Stowe the prestigious Paul Harris Fellow award in recognition of her wonderful work with veggie gardens in Nolukhanyo.
Many folk will be aware of our monthly “Rotary pancakes” at Heritage Mall. We would like to repeat our Rotary Running Wild Trail & Fun Run in 2024 and we have already got ideas on how to improve it.
On behalf of the members of the Rotary Club of Port Alfred, I would like to thank the generous community in Port Alfred for their continued support — we so appreciate every one of you.