Rotary clubs raise cash and hand it out

(CNS): Rotary Central held its 18th Annual Music Extravaganza Fundraising event on Friday at Grand Harbour when Swanky Kitchen Band, Heat and Red White & Blues entertained the crowds as they waited on the big prize draw. The grand prize of $40,000 was won by Autorou Rhoden. This is Rotary Central’s signature fundraising event with net proceeds going to fund the club’s many community projects. Meanwhile, Rotary Sunrise gave $5000 to the LIFE project, Literacy Is For Everyone recently after receiving the grant from the Rotary Foundation the global charitable arm of the international service club.

LIFE chairman Woody Foster received the cheque at the weekly Rotary Sunrise meeting. “LIFE’s business is literacy in the Cayman Islands, it was established two years ago and it is starting to make a difference in the community,” he said. “LIFE, as a non-profit organisation is lucky that it is supported by many volunteers, but some things do not come for free and that is where this grant comes in. We have our paired reading programmes in the primary schools, where students who need help with literacy skills work on a weekly basis with an adult volunteer reading partner.”

Foster explained that the  CALS Foundation (Computer Assisted Literacy Solution), which targets both adults and children is now getting off the ground now and the charity is also providing an intervention service called Leveled Literacy Solution to primary schools in all the of the Government Schools.
“The donation from the Rotary will be used to pay for more LLI interventions,” he added.

Rotarian Hendrik van Genderen explained that the application for the grant was reviewed and agreed by the foundation and was an “example of Rotary’s commitment to literacy and its confidence that LIFE will use the funds wisely.”