Pune: 1670 families get helping hand from Rotary Club of Pune Amanora, Rotary Club of Sinhgad Road

Hadapsar, August 24, 2020: The Rotary Club of Pune Amanora and Rotary Club of Sinhgad Road trust are conducting a ration kits distribution drive for needy families in Pune. About 1670 families from the slums were targeted and are being given 15 days of ration.

This initiative is supported by the Rotary club’s CSR partner, Kubota Agricultural Machinery, India. GS Grewal, senior vice-president, Kubota India and his team participated in the drive and oversaw the distribution. Approximately Rs 10 lakhs is being spent on the food packets for needy families. This drive is going to continue for a few more days and the team is taking care of social distancing norms and other measures necessary for the health and safety of recipients and volunteers.

Grewal said, “It’s great to be able to be of service to the society in this difficult phase when the COVID pandemic is adversely impacting many livelihoods.”

Sonia Meghnani, president of the Rotary Club of Pune Amanora said, “The Coronavirus pandemic has hit humanity in more ways than one. The lockdown has thrown the lives of people out of gear with many losing their jobs and their livelihoods. Some families cannot even afford two square meals a day. Rotary is trying to do its bit by extending a helping hand. We are extremely grateful to our CSR partner Kubota and our logistics partner Spherule Foundation for their tremendous support.”

The distribution of ration is being handled by Spherule Foundation. Dr Geeta Bora, who is the founder of Spherule, is doing a fantastic job. She says, “In these difficult times when many people have lost their jobs. We all need to be more kind so that no one is left behind. People are struggling for food, kids are dropping out of schools because they cannot afford stationery or smartphones There are many challenges but if we all come together we can impact many lives.”

This month they are also providing stationery worth Rs two lakh to needy children and ventilators worth Rs eight lakh to a hospital. The team is gearing up for the second wave of initiatives to be undertaken from next month. The ration is going to be provided to another batch of more than 1000 needy families.

The ecosystem is working fine. Rotary Club of Pune Amanora has also adopted Takrarwadi village, where under the women empowerment programme they have distributed stitching machines to women. These machines are being used to manufacture masks using village self-help group. During the food distribution, the Rotary team is also including the masks which are manufactured by the villagers.

There are several initiatives where this collaboration has helped. Rotary Club of Pune Amanora has been working on various Rotary themes around health, water, education etc.

During the COVID situation, they have worked on supplying hospitals with personal protection equipment (PPE) kits with financial support from CSR partners. Currently, Kubota and Syngenta are CSR partners for the club and they intend to invite more CSR partners.