A Very Merry Christmas For Children In Foster Care:
The wrap up!
A million thank you’s would
not be enough to thank everyone that has helped us with the Helping GC
Kids Project – a project that the members of the Rotary E-Club of
NextGen took on at short notice with the challenge of finding close to
800 Christmas presents for children in foster care on the Gold Coast.
We started with nothing but a
group of four club members who wanted to see this happen but without
any real idea of how to make it work. We were meant to get the project
underway in early September but couldn’t achieve this for a number of
reasons and didn’t really start until mid-October so it is really
satisfying to see that on handover on the afternoon of 15 December, we
did deliver all but 15 presents! It wasn’t obvious on the day that we
were short as we had so many presents coming from so many sources in the
last 24 hours but there is not one child in foster care on the Gold
Coast that missed out as these were covered over the next few days.
The highlight for us was
definitely delivering the presents to the staff at the Department of
Communities, Child Safety & Disability Services. They were so
delighted to come down and help us unload three cars with presents that
we had collected from various sources but they were overwhelmed when we
told them that there was a truck still to come with a further 500
presents. Their joy was unbelievable and it made it all so worthwhile.
What an achievement!
There were four Club members
at the start of the project and it could not have happened without the
support and hard work of Kaye Titmarsh (who looked after the fantastic
photos on Facebook), Ingrid Jewson (who looked after the website design
and was fabulous at collecting gifts from a number of community centres)
and Stewart Hase (who looked after contact with the media, other Rotary
clubs and who also organised the connection to the community centres
where we collected so many of the presents). As time progressed though,
there was more support through the club – Dai Mason organised for Ray
White Paddington to collect presents on our behalf which was
great, Heather Yarker and Rick Jewson (who also helped with the website
design) came shopping which was fun, Tara Little (for helping us to sort
through the presents that we had collected) and Ian Yarker (who along
with Heather) came to the presentation afternoon tea which was such an
awesome event.
Outside of the club, the support was enormous.We had support from:
• Fellow Rotary Clubs from
the area and we say thank you to the Parkwood Rotary, Rotary Ashmore,
Broadbeach Rotary Club and Southport Rotary Club
• The Apex Club of Southport through Scott O'Donnell•
A grant from Mayor Tom Tate
• Cash donations from Sky
Swift, Stewart Hase, Andy Rajapaske, Helen Cleal, Elva Fitzel, Susan
Donnelly, Renee Garske, Lindsay Abbott, Brian Gill, Tony Casey and Ilona
Teremi.
• Gift Cards from Rhonda Whitton and Jane Loxton
• Presents from so many
people that were left at Helensvale Library Community & Cultural
Centre, Southport Community Centre, Nerang Bicentennial Centre, Robina
Community Centre, Ormeau Community Centre, and Studio Village Community
Centre that was organised through another Rotarian – Bronwyn Lacy. The
assistance from the staff at these centres was great and contributed to
the success of the project. We also collected gifts at the Healthy
Lifestyle Club at Bundall who are so involved in youth projects
through Men of Business program and special thanks go to Marco and
Kamila.
• Our friends who donated
gifts• Kmart Helensvale who not only provided us with two shop
assistants to help (one was the store manager) but discounted the retail
price of everything that we bought from them and then delivered 17
shopping trolleys worth of goods to the Department of Community Services
to save us the hassle of transporting them so thank you Scott.
• Help from Westfield
Helensvale who were just so great to deal with and were prepared to
provide us as much help as we needed to reach our goal. In the end, we
only needed 15 presents and they came to the party without hesitation so
thank you Fiona. Thank you also for the backpacks, colouring books and
Frisbees.
• Help from some smaller
retailers who threw in some extra gifts as well when they found out what
we were buying for. This included Jarrod from the Amcal Chemist at
Helensvale and Rebel at Robina
• We had Santa teddies from all over the place including from the Knitting Club and the many other volunteers
• We had promotion
through Friday Flyer in more than one edition of their magazine and on
their Facebook page. GC Confidential and 98.1 The Breeze also helped
promote the event on their Facebook page.
I know that I must have left
someone off the list to thank and I do apologise. It has been a
whirlwind of a project that has been so rewarding but there is one last
person that I have to thank and that is Kathy who did so much behind the
scenes with collecting boxes, photocopying, collecting presents, came
shopping and for spruiking about the project to all who would listen.
Thank you Kathy.
And just in closing, I have
received an email from Kristie at Department of Communities Services
that reads in part “The kids have all been ecstatic with the presents
provided (some couldn’t wait until Christmas to open them) and I am yet
to hear of any young person who has not totally loved their gift. I
guess that goes to show how awesome your buying skills / toy present
choices”.
Bruce Rogers
Secretary
Rotary e-Club NextGen