Eleven small schools in drought-affected remote communities around New England and the Northern Tablelands will receive a thousand dollars each, thanks to Armidale Central Rotary Club.
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“The kids are usually the first to miss out,” Alan Francis said, deputizing for club president Kristyn Barker. “We can’t address it all, but we’ve got to try to do something.”
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Part of the $11,000 donation comes from the nation-wide 2018 Drought Relief Appeal, a joint venture between Rotary, Channel 9, and the National Farmers’ Federation that raised more than $10 million for drought-affected farmers.
Each of Armidale’s four Rotary clubs has received $5000. To their allocation, Rotary Central has added $6000, raised through events such as their annual Armidale Book Fair.
“It’s community money,” Rotary member Meg Georkas said, “so it’s nice to distribute it back out to the community. To me, that’s the purpose of Rotary.”
The Department of Education’s Pat Cavanagh will distribute the money to the eleven schools.
“This is greatly appreciated,” Mr Cavanagh said. “This is not a drop in the ocean for those schools; it’s a significant amount of cash that they can do some significant work with.”
The schools are Kingstown Public School; Black Mountain Public School; Bundarra Central School; Bald Blair Public School; Yarrowitch Public School; Chandler Public School; Kentucky Public School; Woolbrook Public School; Nowendoc Public School; Niangala Public School; and Ebor Public School.
Some of these schools might not be able to fundraise for themselves at the moment – particularly the tiniest schools; Niangala, for instance, has seven students, Ebor half-a-dozen, and Nowendoc only five.
“They’re the schools where the parents are likely to be affected by the drought,” Rotary’s Greta Williamson said.
Meg Georkas agreed. “For those smaller schools, it really is the families and the communities that keep those schools going. If you’ve got the choice between feeding stock; feeding your kids and family; and school, it’s always going to be stock and family.
“We also want those schools to stay open, because then it just creates bigger problems for those families.”
The other three Armidale Rotary clubs are also helping with drought relief. Armidale North Rotary will give its money to the local Salvation Army to distribute. Armidale AM Rotary and Armidale Rotary will both distribute the money in the form of agricultural supplies, petrol, and food vouchers through the Rural Financial Counselling Service local office.
Armidale Central Rotary Club’s next fund-raising event is their December Book Sale, held at the Armidale Racecourse on December 1 and 2.