For the Rotary Club of Stanford it is important to walk the extra mile for their community.
That is why the members met with the headmaster of Okkie Smuts Primary School, Hilton Temmers, to discuss projects they could undertake within the school campus. “Temmers expressed his dream of creating a recreation room for the students who reside at the school hostel during the week. A space for the children to call their own, a space for them to relax, play games, be creative, read, and do on,” Lana Coates, President of the Rotary Club of Stanford, explained.
“Since we, and many older Stanfordians, have a special place in our hearts for the hostel, we jumped at the opportunity to fulfil this dream.”
Meetings and brain-storming sessions were held and a plan-of-action decided on. “Local artists were invited to create murals on some of the wall space, two large chalk-board sections would be created, table-tennis and football tables would be brought in, a reading corner would be created and areas for drawing, table-top games, puzzles, etc would also be created using some old desks which were destined for the dump. And let’s not forget about some curtains for the windows,” Coates said.
After many months of getting the murals done the Rotary team got together and scrubbed cupboards, cleaned windows and floors, collected donated items, shopped for what was still needed.
“What absolute joy for us to see the delight on those little faces. They all shook our hands in thanks, but we could see they couldn’t wait to get back to the activities. Our next step is to create an outdoor space for the summer, which will include a jungle gym, swings, soccer balls, swing-ball, cricket – a variety of bat-and-ball games,” she said.
