THE SHOW THAT GIVES BACK!

The Rotary Club of Papakura has been running a Classic Motorcycle Show as its major fundraising activity since 2012 to support its many and varied Charitable activities directed in the main at our Youth and Life preservation.

The life preservation focus has been to support the National Burns Unit at Middle- more Hospital, with funding for Specialist Nurse Training that is not available in New Zealand and with the supply of rehabilitation equipment that is a vital part of the healing process. This medical unit serves the whole country as well as the Pacific Is- lands and makes a huge contribution to the treatment of major Burns across a broad spectrum of accidents.

Our support of our Youth Driver Awareness programme (RYDA) is also classified as a life preservation activity as its sole focus is to reduce the number of young people suffering debilitating injuries and death as the result of Motor Vehicle Crashes. By attending this programme Students take part in six interactive sessions on a broad range of road safety topics, chosen to highlight the road safety messages and is targeted at 15- to 17-year-olds as they begin to drive or ride in cars driven by their peers. Our Rotary Club has set aside a budget to enable all Schools across Auckland to send their pupils and we provide the funding, if that is all that is holding back this opportunity.

On the educational front we support Youth Development Programmes such as Rotary Youth Personal Enrichment (RYPEN), an annual weekend camp at Kokako Lodge Hunua for 80, 14- to 17-year-old students across a wide socio demographic with the aim of broadening their horizons both culturally and socially. Two or three students from as many schools as possible are organised and this makes this op- portunity so special to see the mixing at all levels.

Scholarships to three local High Schools are awarded each year and the grants are designed to assist special students in their first year at university and approximately 10 students enjoy this assistance annually.

A more senior programme, Rotary’s Youth Leadership Award (RYLA), is aimed at promising young people in the work force who have shown leadership qualities. This is a weeklong programme held at Willow Park Eastern Beach, which challenges these young people in many directions and provides balanced lectures by industry leaders over a wide range of topics. For most of the attendees this may be their first contact with our Rotary Organisation and is a real eye opener to them for the ideals that Rotary stand for including the reward of helping those in need.