“The Lions Club International President visited South Africa recently, and we took him to visit the various clubs’ legacy projects,” said Shirley Gerhard.
Shirley, who is a member of the Wilro Park Lions Club, said they were very excited to meet the International President, as well as the International Director, and show off their various projects. “The two delegates attended a number of meetings while in South Africa, but they made time to visit the various legacy projects. The project the Wilro Lions were involved in is the sensory trail at the Walter Sisulu National Botanical Garden, and, together with members from our Roodepoort Host, Clearwater Cyber, Weltevreden Park, Rustenburg, Krugersdorp and Helderkruin clubs, we hosted the dignitaries to show them exactly what our project was about,” she said.
The dignitaries also paid a visit to the newly renovated Lions bridge, which was the legacy project of one of the other clubs in the zone.
Dr Naresh Aggarwal, the International President, was quite impressed with the concept and said, “I have never seen anything like this before, and felt it was a very well thought-out project.
The fact that it allows visually impaired visitors to the garden to also enjoy the ‘sights’, is fantastic!”
One of the Lions Club members, Jessica Grib, who is also visually impaired, demonstrated how the trail worked when she read the Braille description, and Dr Aggarwal was amazed.
“The fact that the hard work, effort and funds that went into these projects received such favourable recognition from our international visitors made us extremely proud, not only to be Lions, but to be able to serve. Being able to help the visually impaired visitors to the garden to also enjoy the offerings makes this project worthwhile,” Shirley said with a smile.
The visit was concluded with a little ceremony, where all of the various clubs’ members and presidents presented the international visitors with small tokens of thanks.
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