Community members take charge of their area

The Florida South Residents Association shows significant care and passion toward safeguarding the interests of the community.

Rodney Churchyard, who has lived in Florida for about 40 years, is the chairperson of the residents association. He has established a local community cleaning project which has undertaken several clean-up campaigns in the area for more than three years now.

“I’ve had a passion for my community since a young age and have been unemployed for about 19 years. With this, as a community, we felt very left behind and thought it fit to come up with an organisation such as this,” Churchyard said.

The organisation operates along the east-west border, from Westlake Road to Donovan McDonald Retirement Village, and the north-west border, from Ruth and Albertina Sisulu Road, and is made up of local street groups that are always kept informed via a group WhatsApp channel to which everyone has access.

Churchyard cited that he hates illegal dumping and that he believes in a clean environment, and hence his projects fall directly within his field of interests. Furthering, he stated that they work with four other associations and community forums, for example, Florida Block Watch.

He said that they started with a project called Spread The Love Friday, in which he and his gardener would volunteer to clean up neighbourhood pavements and do general maintenance around the area and have now branched out with assistance from the volunteers of two local rehab houses.

Some of the sponsors include AfriForum, which supplied them with petrol chainsaws and bush cutters and cited that something interesting is in the pipeline and will be revealed in due time.

He said that he always receives compliments from e-hailing drivers in the area who said that his area is one of the cleanest and most well-lit areas around, which inspires him to do more.

Some of their projects include cleaning up the stormwater drainage outlet near Florida Lake which he said took the municipality almost a year and a half to sort out.

They are also busy locating and testing fire hydrants in the area to ensure safety in case of a fire.

Churchyard thus also calls on the community to assist with his BackaBuddy campaign, which is ongoing, and mentioned that they will complete the job, but it takes time as they don’t have the proper equipment and right means of disposal.

Anyone who would like to help can view more by clicking on https://www.backabuddy.co.za/rodney-churchyard.