Welcome to Rotary Community Aid Projects
- Details
- Category: About Us
- Published on Friday, 01 April 2011 00:00
- Written by James Forrester
- Hits: 12542
Who are we?
We are the Fundraising side of the Rotary Club of Hurstville for Charitable purposes. Rotary International is an organization that operates through clubs in many countries around the world to make it a better place. It funds charity causes for the community locally, nationally and internationally . The objective of Rotary is to encourage and foster the ideal of service as the basis of worthy enterprise.
At the local community level we support:
- Youth Programs
- Cultural exchange programs
- Disadvantaged children
- Community support groups
- Local hospitals etc.
Nationally we support organisations providing emergency medical aid. In the past we have provided funds for:
- Royal Fying Doctor Service
- Careflight
- Angelflight etc.
We have also contibuted to a training program for an Indigenous Doctor.
This year has seen the need for Flood relief support programs across the country.
Internationally we support programs such as:
- Polio Plus in developing countries through the Rotary Foundation
- Disaster Aid relief
- Social and Economic Development projects.
The list goes on and the need is endless. Generating sufficient funds to provide support is a major challenge, especially in difficult financial times. What we do depends on our cashflow and is at the discretion of the Board.
We also run a program of "Donations in Kind" for communities and groups. See the following article http://rotarcap.com/mrb/index.php/customers/130-donations-in-kind for more information.
Can you Help us?
We have several Indigenous Communities scattered across Australia from Bathurst Island, Broome, remote Western Australia mining towns, Queensland and the Northern Territory that would like to receive donations of books from us to assist in social and economic development of their communites.
These communities have been advised by Indigenous Community Volunteers that we have books to give them and have emailed requests to us.
We have no trouble in putting together books in the specific categories that they request. Our challenge is getting them to them. The cash flow in the shop does not permit us to pay postage or transport for large quantities of books. We are seeking alternative ways to get them them delivered. For example:
- Transport firms that can allocate some space on trucks delivering other goods to remote parts of Australia for Commercial or Mining companies.
- Grey Nomads who are interested in visiting remote parts of Australia and could spare some space in their caravans/four wheel drives.
- Indigenous community Members who are visiting Sydney for any reason are welcome to call on us and collect what they can comfortably take back to their community
If you have any other suggestions on how we can achieve this goal at reasonable cost we are keen to hear from you.
Regards from the Volunteers at Mulga Road Books.
Below are examples of some of our past activities.
Locally -
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Hurstville Community Food Services formerly known as Meals on Wheels
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Special Local Schools for disadvantaged children - Carinya and Woniora Road
Nationally -
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Queensland and Victoria Flood Relief
Internationally -
How we collect money for these organizations.
After running Book Fairs for several years our Bookshop, located in Oatley, is the most recent project. This has increased our costs initially but is reducing physical stress on aging bodies. The advantage is that it is open continuously throughout the week and is staffed entirely with volunteers, thus eliminating the most significant cost of wages. Our target is to generate $30,000 to $50,000 surplus cash for distribution. Our books represent extremely good value for money and our customers keep complimenting us on the quality of a secondhand bookshop. Our volunteers are enthusiastic and provide excellent service to our customers. Come and visit us and see for yourself.
We are working to establish databases of the books in stock and will sell direct on the internet from our website as it becomes feasible.
If you are interested in books then come and visit us to buy, donate or volunteer to assist our efforts.
Besides selling books in the bookshop we have initiated a program to distribute surplus books to Indigenous communities across Australia that have a need for educational and other books to assist in their own community development. We have supplied books to Dubbo, Mt Druitt and La Perouse communities and are currently looking at how to ship to remote communities across Australia. If you can help, please contact us.
Rotary has used this approach in the past to recycle goods and materials as "Donations in Kind" to communities in need. An example of this is shipping medical equipment and hospital beds to underdeveloped countries who have a need for them.
If there are other communities who would like to establish similar local projects in nursing homes, retirement villages etc feel free to ask.
We also have a 
page that you can join us through.
July and August 2011 has seen major changes in the shop both visually and operationally. Come and visit us to see the improvements. Talk with our staff and make your suggestions of how we can improve our customer focus further.
Our other major fundraising activities are the Antiques and Collectables Fair in February, and the Magic Show which is in November.
As this site grows more information will be added.