Rotary to step up at racing fest
A CHATSWORTH Rotary club is impacting communities across the city with its charitable work through the provision of nutrition, healthcare, water and sanitation services to indigent people, children and entire schools.
Vinnie Naidoo, president of the Rotary Club of High Noon, said the young, dynamic club, which comprised 16 members, including professionals in the community who volunteered regularly for charity projects, was looking forward to hosting their charity tent at the eLan Gold Cup Festival this year.
The club was formed in 2014 and regularly meets at the local Rotary Wellness Centre.
Naidoo said the charity’s 20 tables in its marquee were already sold out several weeks before race day. He said the club was thrilled to be able to host a marquee again this year following previous successful fund-raisers at the event.
“Our patrons come and get tea, coffees and muffins in the morning, a full lunch and a full dinner. This is one of our major fund-raisers, and every cent goes towards our projects. It does help a great deal. We come out with at least R30000,” Naidoo said.
He added that the club had not yet decided which of its projects would benefit from the funds.
“There is a great need in the community when it comes to education, water, sanitation and health. There are no boundaries for rotary and we can work wherever the needs are,” Naidoo said.
A massive community project the club undertook was the establishment of a R3.5million dialysis centre at the Rotary Wellness Centre in Chatsworth. The club decided to establish the centre after one of its members lost a brother to kidney failure, highlighting the desperate need in the community for the health service.
The eight-bed centre, established six years ago and managed by a professional health service provider, treats medical aid patients whose payments subsidise the treatment of indigent patients from the community.
Naidoo said the club had raised funds for the project, some of which were raised through marquees it had previously hosted, courtesy of Gold Circle, at the Gold Cup.
“There is a great need for kidney treatment, and at hospitals right now if you don’t have medical aid and you go for treatment, you will be sent home to die,” Naidoo said.
The centre is always busy treating patients Monday to Saturday. This is why the club has plans to raise a further R6m, to upgrade the facility to a 20-bed, 20-dialysismachine centre so that more people can benefit. Naidoo said the club was involved with feeding schemes at three rural schools, where it provided lunch one day a week.
It also provided local schools with a one-day youth development course and sent pupils on a leadership camp.
The club helped Barracuda Primary in Newlands East set up a library, and has helped schools obtain international funding from other Rotary Clubs that have matched its own donations for vital water and sanitation projects.