At the Yellowhead Rotary meeting on July 27, 2017 two representatives (Shamitha Aravind and Sarah Ash) of the College Heights Interact Club presented their their BC wildfire relief fund raising initiative which raised close to $3000 over 3 days. This is a great example of "Rotary Youth in Action". They presented a letter detailing their efforts to both the Prince George Yellowhead Rotary Club President Dave Wilbur, which is included, keep reading.
The College Heights Secondary School Interact Club raised $3,000 for the Wildfire Evacuees and following is their letter explaining what happened:
The forest fires in the Cariboo and the evacuees plight has been sitting heavily on all our minds for the past few weeks. As a result, last week a small group of us from the College Heights Interact Club decided to do something about it and raise some money for the Red Cross who seemed the go to group for the evacuees.
After connecting with the Red Cross and our local Save On in College Heights, we set up a card table out front of Save On with the idea of asking for change as donations to help those forced out of their homes in the Cariboo. With the help of friends from school, we were able to man the table for eight hours a day, finishing off the drive on Monday evening.
We had set a target of maybe $100 with it coming from pocket change from people going to Save On. We thought if we could get $20 a day it would be worth it, but we were not prepared for what happened. At the end of the first day we had over $600!!! It kind of got away on us, but the ice cream bucket kept filling up on day two three and four. We have collected almost $3,000 for the Red Cross and very proud of it.
The reason for this letter though is not about us and what we were available to accomplish, but about Rotary. One of the reasons we did what we did is from watching and learning about Rotary through Interact and other community events through out the years. Our schooling taught us how to plan, organize and deliver a successful event. But Rotary taught us how to think outside the box, which is what we did.
So we are thinking outside the box by inviting your club to participate in raising money to help the evacuees once they settle back into their home towns. We want you to become partners with us in this community venture, but not the Red Cross. We understand that there has been a Rotary BC Wildlife Recovery Fund established.
The fund will make a difference to those in wildfire-stricken communities as they return home and start recovery and rebuild.
If we had known about this we would have donated to that cause, but that is water under the bridge today.
Please join us.
Shamitha Aravind and Sarah Ash