Martin Rogers and Chris Hendricks recently visited Mac Robertson Girls’ High School to deliver bags for the Stationery Drive and also badges for the two co-presidents, the secretary and five directors of the Interact Club sponsored by Port Phillip Rotary. Martin and Chris were greeted by Fathima ZIYAD who is the staff representative of the Interact Club at Mac Rob. Rehana
(Fathima), invited both Martin and Chris to attend a full meeting of the Club. Martin was introduced as the Youth Committee member for Port Phillip Rotary, and Chris as Port Phillip Rotary’s president, addressed the group. They were both warmly welcomed by the group of 100 girls at the meeting and 100 girls who zoomed in.
The meeting was the second that they had had for the year. The first meeting was set up with booths, which had two directors at each. The booths represented the projects that the girls were going to be involved in for the year. The interested participants could then go from booth to booth to ask any questions about the activity. There was also a general booth manned by Rehana and the two co-presidents that was set up in order to answer any questions around Rotary or the interact club. Following the first meeting, the opportunity to join the Interact Club at McRob was opened up for a 24 hour period and during that time they had 100 girls sign up to attend the regular meetings and 100 girls who chose to zoom in on the regular meetings All of the girls will be involved in the projects across the year. Having so many girls in the Interact Club is an absolutely fabulous outcome. An attendance system has been put in place with prizes for top attendees to improve outcomes.
The girls have already commenced the first project, which is a stationery drive. Each each of the 43 classes has been given a bag in which store the stationery. Once the bags are filled, they are taken down to a holding area and placed into boxes. The class providing the most stationery to be taken to Timor Leste will be will win a prize, which will be Bubble Tea. The stationery will be taken to Donations In Kind (DIK) where it will be shipped out to Timor Leste. Another project is origami hearts and stars project where the Interacters hand made items are used to decorate the school and this is coming to a close. Mission accomplished!
Another of the projects that the girls will be undertaking this year is the For A Meal event. This is always a very popular event on the School calendar as it is very hands-on and across the day they have over 300 volunteers go through the program. Another event that is on the cards for this year is the International Ball at St Kilda Town Hall, which has been set up in order for the Year 9 students and their parents to be welcomed into the school community. It is a wonderful event where people come dressed in their dress of their heritage countries. Interact will be involved in the organisation, creating hand made paper decorations and the running of the program during the night, but this will be a community event rather than a fundraising event.
The Interact Club at Mac Rob have certainly hit the road running. Well done to our enthusiastic co-presidents, Samantha and Claire.