Club reaches out and feeds those in need
JOBURG – They aim to ensure that the main focus of the club's energies will be on service to the community.
Desperately hungry children in Alexandra have received weekly groceries from the Rotary Club of Johannesburg New Dawn based in Parkview.
The club comprises a group of diverse professional people, united in friendship and a sense of giving back. They aim to ensure that the main focus of the club’s energies will be on service to the community. The name New Dawn also reflects the club’s commitment to being a place where Rotarians can have fun while at the same time serving the community. The club has contributed R80 000 so far and expects a further donation from the Rotary Club of Lindau-Westallgäu, in Germany, to take this to R100 000.
Johannesburg New Dawn president Judy Sligcher said, “We hope that we can contribute even more as this lockdown stretches on.” The donations are being made to the Alexandra Education Committee (AEC), which started helping 150 families in the second week of April, giving them R500 a week to buy groceries. A grateful matric learner texted AEC director Paul Channon, adding a heart emoji and a photo of her plate of meat and mealie meal.”We are just so grateful to all the donors for their contributions during these terrible times,” said Channon, who is himself a member of Johannesburg New Dawn Rotary Club.
Channon said the AEC realised there was ‘desperation’ just a few weeks into the lockdown.”Obviously, the children and families we deal with are very much at risk at the best of times. With the current conditions, issues of hunger, poverty, and unemployment are being exacerbated,” he said. Channon said the hunger alleviation fund began with a R100 000 donation from the Frank Jackson Foundation in the UK, and the figure had since reached close to R1 million, with donations from as little as R200 to as much as R300 000 from foundations and trusts mainly in South Africa. “This means we will be able to help the families in Alex right through June now and possibly into July,” he said.
The AEC had also received donations of food and was making food drops into Alex three times a week.
Details: Channon said anyone who would like to make a donation would find details about how to help on the AEC’s website at www.alexeducation.org.za
