Rotary Corner: When opportunity comes knocking

Seize the many opportunities Rotary offers to enrich our lives and those of the communities in which we serve.

Members of Rotaract Peterborough, and a working group of Orton Rotarians, joined city councillors including Irene Walsh, at Orton Goldhay Centre, home of Family Voice (FV) Peterborough. FV is a charity that helps the families of Special Educational Needs & Disability (SEND) children in the area.

The team worked on the garden (clearing weeds, cleaning up beds and general tidying). Some did a litter pick around the neighbourhood, which includes a shop or two, car park, school, footpaths etc.

A group of volunteers helps regularly so it was an ideal opportunity for Rotarians to join them and work for our local community. The most valuable piece of litter found was a £10 note - that went straight in the FV donation box. Ortons Rotary plans to continue working with Family Voice in the future. In addition to continuing monthly litter picks and gardening, opportunities exist in developing the garden/play area by repair/repainting the play house and repainting the fence.

Would you like to volunteer to help us? If so Louise Ravenscroft (CEO of FV) would like to hear from you: www.familyvoice.org The FV group want to provide picnic benches and Rotary plans to contribute. Cllr. Irene Walsh hopes to produce a plan for how Rotary can help and a WhatsApp group has been set up which will include Rotarian representatives.

Orton Rotarians are continuing to help the local community with donations to the Peterborough Foodbank. So far this year the club has donated almost £3,000, half of which has come from personal donations made by our members.

Rotarians in Whittlesey have found ways to help their community during the past 14 weeks, using funds raised to give relief and assistance. £1,500 has been donated to the Youth Counselling scheme (YPCS) from the President’s Charity monies. This will help to provide counsellors to work with schools and colleges, giving support to children experiencing mental health and wellbeing difficulties. The money was raised mainly from the Proms Concert staged earlier this year and other fun activities Rotarians held, including summer and Christmas extravaganzas.

In the early weeks of lockdown £400 was given to the Foodbank scheme in Whittlesey, together with £200 to ‘Helping Whittlesey’ who have provided hot cooked meals on a weekly basis to those in the community in need of support, offering someone to talk to, collect medication and food.

Rotary welcomes new members. Anyone interested can contact me [email protected] or join a local club Zoom meeting to find out more. Whittlesey has events planned for later this year and into next year for fundraising and social enjoyment, including a Beer Festival, Proms Night, Life Education Quiz, Petanque Evening and other visits [email protected]