Warming hearts, lighting lives

Each year for the past three years, over 200 people benefit from Project Winterease of the Rotaract Club of Navsari Young Turks, RID 3060.

The club identifies underprivileged families across Navasari city in Gujarat and distributes warm clothes to protect them from the harsh winter chill. “We conduct a special drive just before the winter season to collect blankets, sweaters, shawls, caps etc. Rotarians, Rotaractors and the public pitch in; some people prefer to donate funds, and we use that to buy new woollens,” says the club’s president-elect Tirth Bhatt. The project is executed across two days.

The Each One Teach One is a signature project of the club being run since the club’s charter in 2016. Every year the club adopts a school, preferably in a rural or slum neighbourhood, and every member educates at least one student. “We teach them basic English, Math and good personal habits such as oral hygiene. We also teach them music and dance, and relate stories from our epics. Students from nursery classes to Class 8 are covered under this programme,” he says. For many of these children, the Rotaractors become not just tutors, but role models and cheerleaders.

Another project that has won the hearts of the community is Punarutthan, now over seven years old. During Ganesh Chaturthi, just before the visarjan, club members set up stalls along the procession routes and near the Purna River to collect the flowers and coconut offerings placed before the deity. “We request people to drop off the offerings with us so the river doesn’t get polluted,” says Bhatt. The flowers are later converted into organic fertiliser for local farmers, while the coconuts and edible prasad are distributed among the needy.

The club’s compassion also extends to the elderly. Every Diwali, members spend a day at an old age home, sharing sweets, gifting new clothes and playing games with the residents. As evening falls, they step out together to burst simple crackers — “a festival of lights and laughter, but more importantly, of companionship.”

The club hosted Safarnama, a district trek programme involving Rotaract clubs of RID 3060. Over 280 participants from Gujarat and Maharashtra went on a one-day trek through lush forests and streams in Dang. “The best part was that the area was a complete no-network zone. Without mobile phones, we really connected with each other,” smiles Bhatt, whose father Dhruv Bhatt had chartered the club during his presidential term.