Rotary is an international service organisation whose stated purpose is to bring together business and professional leaders in order to provide humanitarian service and to advance peace and goodwill through our fellowship in our groups and around the world.
Here in Pembrey and Burry Port we work very hard to uphold these ideals. Our commitment to working for local people and charities is made with complete dedication.
In this article alone, we have examples of our work in the community.
Netta Stephens, the wife of Mark Stephens, a Rotary member, decided she wanted to do a Macmillan coffee morning in Kidwelly. The date was the 29th September and 6 weeks before that Netta began her preparations
The venue was the Princess Gwenllian’s Function room , provided free of charge by Nurture’s Staci Sylvan. Friends of Parkview Drive, supported by our Rotary Club, are a group of lovely ladies who helped Netta with some cake-making, but it is important to stress that Netta is a real star. She made 12 large and different cakes. Two of them were vegan, one carrot cake and one chocolate cake. As a vegetarian, I can honestly say that they were absolutely delicious. Jenkins the baker donated a whole load of doughnuts. She had to leave the cake making to nearer the time because homemade cakes are not great to be frozen and also you would need to have an extra large freezer if you were going to do that.
It was a great deal of work for her as well as the time required to be able to bake and decorate these fabulous gateaux. Netta’s devotion and dedication was extraordinary. She did say that it was a pleasure to do and she enjoyed the experience. An incredible woman! The result of all this was that Netta’s work raised £1000. Amazing!
On the 11th October, all the Rotarians got up very early and arrived at the meeting at 7.15 in the morning to celebrate World Porridge Day to support the Scottish charity MARY’S MEALS.
Magnus MacFarlane-Barrow, founder of Mary’s Meals, described the charity:
“Mary’s Meals is a series of lots of little acts of love. If you put all these acts of sacrifice together, it creates a beautiful thing”.
Magnus and his brother Fergus, both Catholic, loaded their jeep with aid donations, and drove from Scotland to Bosnia 23 times. Magnus never returned to his job and set up a registered charity, Scottish International Relief.
In 2002,Mary’s Meals was set up after Magnus’s aid trip to Malawi in Southeast Africa. The children there just wanted enough food to eat and to go to school one day in the future. The Mary in the title is the mother of Jesus. Initially, the charity fed 200 children and now it feeds 2 million children a day. With Mary’s Meals the global average cost of feeding a child for a whole school year is approximately £16. Mary’s Meals has been running now for 20 years.
It has now set up a Backpack Project. Children from all over the UK have collected thousands of old Backpacks. This is due to the fact that the children in need of these have lived through war, poverty, famine or natural disasters. They cannot afford pencils and other writing materials so this Mary’s Meals Project fills the backpacks. This is a lifeline for them. Education is a way forward for a poor child to escape poverty in later life.
Our local Rotary started to support Mary’s Meals in 2012, thanks to one of our members, Les Williams.
We have now started a coat collection, overcoats, jackets etc. to send abroad to help people in need. We also collect old spectacles, stamps, and empty blister packs which used to contain tablets (a company can strip off the aluminium to sell ) and the money goes to Marie Curie.
We have supported Llanelli Rotary in the launch of a book for children called Watch Out, A Child’s Guide To Everyday Dangers which has been produced by a charity run by Lynn and Tony Churchill called “OK our kids”. One of our local group, Rhos Griffiths, took on the responsibility of distribution and wrote:
“Earlier in the year the club had the opportunity of attending the launch of this booklet at the Llanelli Rotary Club. As part of their schools project they were providing copies for participating schools in their area.
“After reading the booklet, club members thought it would be a good idea to give copies to the primary/comprehensive schools in the community in order that pupils could take a copy home to share/read with their parents. The booklet is essentially a child/pupil guide to everyday dangers and addresses many issues confronting families. Our club was able to distribute over 500 copies to schools and their pupils.”
So our community and charity work continues. This is what Rotary means and stands for which makes us feel very, very proud.
We are a very friendly Rotary and have many good times together as well as doing a great deal for various charities. Come and give us a try and then maybe you would like to join us. Our email address is pembreyrotaryclub@mail.com.
