| Redhill Interact 2009 |
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| Monday, 26 October 2009 20:48 |
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The Redhill Interact Club has a long and proud history. It was chartered in 1979 - and judging by the report back given to us by the Redhill Interact Board, the Club is going strong in this, its 30th year. The Redhill Interact Board attended our meeting to tell us about their activities and to show us a slide presentation of their major project, at Ezebeleni in Katlehong. As they told us about their fund-raising activites it became clear that at Redhill School, care for the less privileged members of our community is not restricted to Interact members. All their projects involve everyone at their school. It made all of us glad to hear of so much good will and action channelled by the Interact club. Each term the Club organizes various fund-raising activities. They held a car wash - washing 50 cars - and the proceeds they donated to Cotlands and to Riversands School (for food for the pupils). They held a clothes drive - and collected un-wanted items of clothing to be donated to various needy centres. In the Easter egg drive they collected about a thousand Easter Eggs, having appealed to the competitive spirit of all Redhill pupils and having turned it into an Inter-House event. When the Interact Club launched the drive to collect cans of food, they were amazed at the response - thousands of cans were collected, and at a function at St John's College, all the cans collected by Interact Clubs at various Northern Suburb schools were laid out on the rugby field, spelling out in big letters the words "WE CAN"! The Club also holds what they call ‘mini' events such as cake sales and boerewors sales. They held a Cancer Shave-a-Thon in collaboration with the Cancer Association and persuaded the whole of the First Rugby team to shave their heads to raise funds. Another example of the Club's focus on needy people close to home was their ‘Cleaning Day': the members of the Club, together with other fellow pupils, gave the hard-working cleaning staff at Redhill an afternoon off, and while the cleaners were enjoying a party the pupils got to work and scrubbed and swept and generally cleaned the school. Everyone realized how much hard work goes into keeping a school clean and tidy. The Interact Club also donated dog food to the SPCA when supplies were running low, and as they do every year, they gave the children at Riversands School in Diepsloot a wonderful Christmas party. Redhill Interact's big project is Ezebeleni: this is a school and home for cerebral palsied children. There are about 80 children in the home and they need so much - new beds, bedding, and curtains, for example - together with funds to carry out structural repairs to their building. The up-coming Fashion Show is their big-fundraiser for this project. We watched the slide show and understood, however, that what the Redhill Interact Club offers the children of Ezebeleni is something much more precious than curtains and beds (although they are hoping to provide these too): the Interactors visit the children and love them and give them fun and warmth. All of us at the meeting were really impressed by the achievements of the Redhill Interact Club. Once Clive Bezer had thanked all the Interact Board members, President Graham announced that the Sandton Rotary Club had decided there and then to donate R5000 to the Ezebeleni project. We hope - and we know, in fact - that this will mean a great deal to the Ezebeleni children, and to the hard-working members of the Interact Club of Redhill School. |
