Projects

CHARITY GALA

Southend Rotary invited local charities and community leaders to an awards presentation and networking lunch at Porters civic house on 21/02/23, to swap notes on the latest challenges in Southend. We received updates on community needs from Lions, Welcome 2 the UK, Young Carers and Family Action, after presenting a posthumous Paul Harris Fellowship for the family of the late Sir David Amess, and a Rotary heraldic memento for Essex Rotary Past District Governor Keith Brownlie. We learned key challenges include food poverty, transport, education and health for pensioners, youngsters and refugees. We then inducted four members, while a new applicant from the NHS also dropped in to start the membership process. We were also pleased to present his Worshipful the Deputy Mayor Cllr Stephen Habermel with support for the Mayoral Charity Fund towards St Vincent's foodbank. Reinvigorated by lunch, guests were given a demonstration by Rotary in Great Britain & Ireland resilience lead Peter Dowse of one of the Shelter Boxes we have been sending Ukraine, Turkey and Syria. The get together ended with a guided tour of the mayoral residence by a deputy macebearer, before charity representatives, also including Age Concern, Packed With Smiles, Southend Community Adult College and Southend Pensioners Campaign, swapped contact details and made their way back to work.

Some of our club members were among the volunteers hosting Indian Southenders Diwali this year at Sweyne school on 29/10/22, after two years missed due to lockdown. This gathering to mark the end of the Hindu Festival of Light featured dancing from Bollywood to bodypopping and a gormet kitchen, with everyone going home well fed and entertained.

SWEET REWARD FOR NURSES

Southend Rotary met Southend Hospital nursing team today to thank them for their perseverance through the pandemic. We took the opportunity to drop off a trolley load of M&Ms for the twelve hardest hit frontline wards, kindly donated by Mars' M&Ms World Leicester Square via Rotary Club of Woodford Green.