RC Alleppey builds houses to celebrate platinum jubilee
Project Rotary Village aims to build 10 houses on 20 cents of land bought by RC Alleppey, RID 3211, and the housekeys will be handed over to the homeless families on Charter Day celebrations of the club on July 25.
“We are celebrating our platinum jubilee this year (2023–24) and the houses are under construction at the Muhamma grama panchayat on the outskirts of Alappuzha. We will retain the land which belongs to Rotary Charities Society of our club. Plans are on to draft day-long programmes on our charter day and we are planning to invite a past RI president as chief guest to showcase our journey so far in social service and community initiatives,” explains Raju Chandy, chairman, Platinum Jubilee Committee (PJC).
While a five-member advocates panel is drafting the guidelines to identify the beneficiary families, the 23-member PJC including five patrons is into the nitty-gritty of the charter day events that are being planned as a big public image endeavour of this “second oldest club in RID 3211 after RC Trivandrum,” says Chandy. On the housing project, he says, “the land cost plus the expenses for building other amenities including a giant compound wall for the community will be ₹25 lakh, out of the total project cost of ₹1.05 crore.” Each budget house will roughly cost ₹8 lakh.
During its silver jubilee year (1974), a Rotary community hall was set up and a second club in Alappuzha, namely RC Alleppey East, was sponsored to mark the occasion. On Rotary’s 75th anniversary in 1980, a blood bank was set up at the Women and Children Government Hospital, Alappuzha, which has been of “immense use to the patients and the general public during medical emergencies,” he says. “We built a mortuary with a three-cabin facility, a first-of-kind facility in the city, at the Sahrudaya Hospital in 1996. The project cost of ₹1.5 lakh was met through member donations.”
Golden jubilee (1999)
The club built 11 houses for those families which had land, but “could not construct their houses for various reasons. So, we identified such families and built houses for them to mark our 50th year of charter,” recalls Chandy. It was a matching grant project worth ₹15 lakh. AKS member Betty Karan, wife of PDG Ravi Karunakaran, is the chief patron of PJC and “she has been advising us on the charter day programmes.”
Chartered on July 25, 1949, the 67-member club meets weekly at its community hall which it had built during its silver jubilee year. DG G Sumithran laid the foundation stone for the housing project at a simple ceremony attended by club president Muhammed Aslam, AG K Cherian, secretary Jijo Chacko and other members.
