Dear Partner Rotary Clubs,
Good news! The container of 900 Shelterbags from South Africa has arrived in Melbourne where they are being divided between NSW (RC Terrigal), VIC (RC. Mt. Waverley) and SA (Rotary Club Gawler Light). We expect delivery to DIK/RARE warehouse at Edinburgh any day now and will be in contact with you again very soon to arrange collection.
To date we have 20 partner Rotary clubs from District 9510 who have committed to supporting the Shelterbag Project through the purchase of Shelterbags for local distribution or in general support of the project. The final cost of a Shelterbag has worked out at $92.77 each. That’s a bit more than we expected and up from around $80 when we first started our pilot project in Gawler with bags imported 2 years ago! The good news for partner clubs is that the extra donations we received will cover the extra cost above the $90/bag on your invoice.
After a late run of interest from clubs we were able to increase our quota of Shelterbags from 300 to 350 to cover the extra orders and we still have a small number in reserve. It remains to be seen whether we can procure any more bags from interstate during winter but, if so, they will have to be charged at the full price plus any additional transport costs.
We will organise collection days at DIK/RARE in the near future as semi-working bees (with barbeque) for partner clubs to come and roll up their own bags and take them away. Alternative arrangements will be made as necessary.
Shelterbags come flat-packed in shrink wrapped bales of 10 which we will unwrap for checking and stencilling with the District 9510 logo. We recommend that partner clubs add their club’s name and an identification number to aid recovery should they be lost or stolen and found. It will also give you a means of reconciliation with your local community organisation or outreach agency and a reference for them to record the date issued and perhaps some other statistics. We wrote our ours discreetly inside the pocket and at the toe with Texta/paint pen.
As we found with our pilot project in Gawler there are many sensitivities and privacy issues which limit the amount of data that can be divulged to third parties but any information such as age range, gender and anecdotal comments may be valuable for future grant funding and promotion of Shelterbags. In three months, we will send you a request for feedback on how your local distribution is going.
I’d like to share with you the attached article from Gawler’s local newspaper, the Bunyip, which gives a good account of how Gawler’s Red Room Project is benefitting the needs of homeless persons through its collaborative framework. When we first started our Shelterbag Pilot Project the timing was just right for us to fit into this wider alliance of community organisations, which was initiated by Gawler Police and also includes Council and representatives from several government and non-government agencies, who meet regularly to help resolve related issues and facilitate referral pathways.
Finally, I would like to thank all those Rotary clubs and individuals who have supported the Shelterbag Project thus far and for the hospitality you have extended to myself or other members of the Shelterbag team on our visits to your clubs. We wish you all the best in liaising with your local community organisations and the distribution of your Shelterbags.
Richard Tucker
