By Mikayla van Loon
After coming out of the pandemic lockdowns late last year, the Rotary Club of Lilydale (RCL) was quick to get back to its regular program of helping those in the community.
Now RCL would like to share what it has been able to achieve with its very first Connect and Reconnect high tea to be held at Lilydale Bowls Club on 27 November, extending the invite to all in the community.
“We do a lot of behind the scenes things that people don’t realise Rotary does,” Rotary member Anne Van Horrick said.
The projects Lilydale Rotary has undertaken over the last year ranges from helping the Lilydale Township and Beautification groups decorate the town for Christmas, providing food vouchers to Anchor, helping Caladenia Dementia Care clean up its gardens to giving appreciation packs to Covid-19 nurses.
RCL president Jenny Selway said while the club had hosted networking events for local community groups and businesses in the past, it had never opened its doors to the community.
“It’s good if Rotary can raise its profile in the community. A lot of people have heard of Rotary but they don’t know what people do at the grassroots level,” she said.
“So I thought it’d be a nice way where people could come along and actually meet volunteers that are already in Rotary.”
Organisations like Anchor, Yarra View and Bushland Flora Nurseries and Lilydale Sailing Club have been invited to do short presentations about their partnerships with Rotary in the past, giving an insight into some of the projects the club has conducted in the local area.
While helping out where they can locally, Rotary members also have a huge focus on providing for disadvantaged communities overseas.
“By recycling playgrounds that are being replaced by the council, we prevent them going to landfill. We collected six this year. The playgrounds are eventually shipped overseas to bring joy to children in developing countries,” RCL EnviroClub chairperson Madalyn Parlet said.
Even during the Covid pandemic RCL was also able to collect unused curtain material from Dollar Curtains and Blinds to be sent overseas via Donations in Kind (DIK).
“I believe it’s one of the biggest recycling operations in Australia,” Gerry Van Horrick said.
DIK retrieves desks and chairs from schools, as well as hospital beds and side tables, among other equipment to be sent to the West Footscray warehouse to then be shipped to people who need it most.
One project RCL hosts every month is the Craft and Produce market and is probably the most well known, not only helps local makers but becomes one of the biggest fundraising events for the group to put to good use across the region.
“We operate the Lilydale Craft and Produce market on the first Sunday of the month. The market averages 40 stalls with up to 1000 visitors,” Ms Parlet said.
“This year we raised $24,000 to donate back into the local community such as Dandenong Storm Recovery.”
Another visual display of support for veterans this year was the creation of thousands of handmade red poppies.
“In preparation for Anzac Day, Rotarians, with club member Lynn Whelan and family, placed poppies on the graves of members of the armed forces and created a substantial display of 3000 poppies in the field at Lilydale Memorial Park,” Ms Parlet said.
Although just a selection of the projects RCL has been able to achieve in the last year, Ms Selway said she hopes by sharing what a community effort looks like, more people will be interested in joining.
“[We need] new ideas and people with passion for doing things in the local community, as much as anything else,” she said.
“We’re trying to localise what we do a bit more. Rotary is very international but it really is all grassroots.”
To book a spot, go to www.trybooking.com/CBJIL or call Jenny on 0418 344 625. Tickets are $20 to cover the cost of high tea. The event will get underway at 2.30pm.
