Local Projects

It's cold and there's a coronavirus global pandemic, so hundreds of homeless people in Melbourne are being given emergency accommodation in hotels and motels around the city. Fed during the week but not the weekends? It was time for collaboration & action, with Uniting (formerly Prahran Mission), FareShare & Food Bank for food, Pinchapoo for personal care toiletries and Rotary Prahran to pack & deliver! First delivery was friday 5th June, from now on every friday! Join us?

Repacking corporate & school apparel for shipping to Timor and elsewhere, Rotary Prahran joined Rotarians from Malvern & the E-Club to get this donated stock moving!

Twenty five years ago Rotarians, Lions & the City of Whitehorse established EERN, the Eastern Emergency Relief Network in Mitcham, to collect donated furniture and household goods and make them available to clients of relief agencies who were setting up new homes after coming out of long term homelessness, domestic violence, incarceration and more.

After helping thousands of families in need, six years ago EERN helped Rotarians in the western suburbs establish WERN (Western Emergency Relief Network) in Derrimut, and now both these Emergency Relief Networks are helping Rotary Prahran and other Rotary Clubs in the inner Melbourne area, to establish RIMERN.... Rotary Inner Melbourne Emergency Relief Network, so that the Melbourne Metropolitan network of Emergency Relief Agencies will be complete from East to West.

Rotary Prahran is now a member of RORP... Rotary Overseas Recycled Playgrounds, a project of Rotary Flemington Kensington that saves retired playgrounds from landfill by dismantling them, shipping them overseas to be rehomed thanks to Rotarians in developing countries.

Team leader Will Slade is pictured with Ian McMaster, unbolting the Victoria Gardens playground in July 2020.

Rotary Prahran members joined Melbourne Rotaractors & friends in cleaning up the Yarra River bank (in sweltering heat!) as part of their commitment to all things environmental. We fished a shopping trolley out of the water, got 10 used syringes out of harms way & bags of assorted trash.... great work team!

Rotary Aiding Mobility Program provides wheelchairs, walkers, crutches, over-toilet seats and more to people unable to afford to buy them. Physiotherapists, Occupational Therapists, Community Nurses and carers are invited to select suitable equipment, free of charge, for their clients.

If mobility affordability is a problem, use our RAMP!

Please text or phone our RAMP coordinators Peter Schneider 0417 322 617 or Jim Smith 0418 357 756 for more information and to arrange collection of donations or a viewing of all this wonderful, pre-loved & free of charge equipment!

Know someone who needs a donated wheelchair, walker, crutches or over toilet seat? Rotary can help via RAMP!

Rotary Prahran runs the Homework Club for Preps to Grade 6 children on the Horace Petty Estate from 4 - 5pm every thursday during school terms, helping children from disadvantaged and refugee backgrounds with literacy, numeracy, social skills and more! Most children speak a language other than English at home and some of their parents struggle with pronunciation, comprehension and spelling in English so encourage their children to work with us twice a week.

Rotary Aiding Mobility Program is growing every month, with more donations of wheelchairs, walkers & other mobility aids from people all over Melbourne who have found us here on the Rotary Prahran website.

One amazing donation from the Glen Allen Special School literally filled our DIK truck and all the items have just been shipped to a school for disabled children in Siem Reap Cambodia! Nothing is wasted, we supply these pre-loved mobillity aids to needy Australians and people overseas who are in contact with their own local Rotary Club. Got a donation? Please contact Peter on 0417 322 617 or send us your name, number & the location of the goods via our website & thank you!

Thanks to Prahran Rotarian Helen Robbins who has run Rotary Sews since 2016, more socially disadvantaged people have made friends & learned to sew at our weekly Rotary Sews classes, thursdays 1 - 3pm at the Freemasons Hall in St. Edmonds Road Prahran (behind the Library)

With donated fabrics & sewing machines, this small but productive group is another example of Rotary in Action and places are open for new students in 2023! Contact us for more details.

Word of the wonderful recycled & 'pre-loved' mobility equipment being donated to and by Rotary is spreading! Here former Rotarian (Past President of Rotary Doncaster & long time Doncaster jeweller and watchmaker) David East has donated a special set of crutches designed for a limbless person.

If a suitable client can be found in Melbourne then RAMP will provide them free of charge, if not, chances are they'll be shipped overseas with wheelchairs, walkers, over toilet seats and hospital equipment to one of the many countries that benefit from the treasure trove of recycled equipment from Rotary's Donations in Kind warehouse in Footscray. 

If you have unused mobility aids, please contact our RAMP rep, Peter, on 0417 322 617 to arrange pick up. If you have a client who would struggle to afford to buy or hire mobility aids, maybe RAMP can help.

Calling for volunteers for Homework Club! Can you help us between 4 - 5pm on mondays &/or thursdays?? Fun, rewarding and easy... lovely kids & other volunteers, please CONTACT US HERE FOR MORE INFORMATION!

Sponsored by Rotary Prahran so they can organise residents' dinners & apply for work in nearby hospitality outlets!

Teaching sewing & knitting to local residents is another great Community Service project of Rotary Prahran with the generous support of Freemasons Victoria, who have donated the use of their hall in St. Edmonds Road Prahran for our weekly sewing & knitting classes.

Nadeson triplets make clay poppies for the Clifford Sadlier VC memorial at Sth Yarra Primary school.

Putting pre-loved books out into the community to be enjoyed and shared, over & over again by 'read-cycling'! Donations needed, please Contact Us to Donate & book finders... please post a selfie on our facebook page!

Painting, digging out a massive tree stump, preparing vegie garden beds.... all in a day's work for Prahran Rotarians helping out in Armadale at Our Lady of Lourdes Primary School. Principal Francine Walsh, teachers and parents worked alongside Peter Schneider, Graeme Newton, Susie Cole and Gilly Swinnerton to spruce up the exterior of this community school.

Want to learn to sew or knit? Maybe you're an expert & you'd like to join a workshop to make clothes, curtains, gifts & more! Rotary has the sewing machines & fabrics, Freemasons have kindly provided the hall..... let's get sewing!!

Join the ladies & men from Cambodia, Tibet & Turkey in getting to know electric sewing machines & all the possibilities for creativity! 

Weekly on thursday afternoons, 1pm  - 3pm but closed during school holidays and public holidays.

Meet Paris and Grace, our Club's sponsored students at RYPEN, a personal development camp held over a weekend twice a year.

After a very competitive application process, Sen.Sgt Martin Bourke from Victoria Police Prahran Station has been successful in being accepted onto the Victoria Police Leaders Mentorship Program, being paired with experienced business mentor & Prahran Rotarian Gilly Swinnerton.

A community sewing & knitting class and workshop!

Event

Date From : Thu Oct 6, 2016 : 13:00
Date To : Thu Oct 6, 2016 : 15:00

Inner South Community Health OT's, Karen & Sue were excited to see just how much equipment they can choose from for their needy clients at DIK warehouse! Susie & Poppy showed them the mobility aids so they can collect supplies whenever they need to.

St. Kilda Mums do wonderful work supporting young families with recycled equipment for babies and tots.