It was 25 years ago, on the day....., that a few kind hearted men met and decided to become a part of the worldwide movement of Rotary to bring about a change in the community of the better. That led to the birth of the Rotary Club of New Bombay Seaside.
Two and a half decades have seen our Club scaling heights. What was seemingly a small step then has become a force to reckon with in the community. The changes that our Club has brought about is something we are proud about. No doubt that we have miles to go. The bonding amongst family members of our club is the envy of many others.
A large number of projects have been undertaken by our club for the benefit of the community. In the very second year, the club adopted Waahal Village. The association with the village continued right through - we laid water pipelines, upgraded the classrooms, etc. and also installed Solar Lighting in the connected Adivasi village which did not have power.
As we moved ahead we had adopted Minatayi Hospital and did a number of projects there – renovating the Paediatric ward, installing water coolers, uninterrupted power system, etc.
As a part of our club’s drive towards going Green, during the rotary centenary year our club decided to undertake a massive project, that of gifting a Gas based Crematorium to the Nerul community. It was built at a cost of around ? 15 lakhs and handed over to NMMC.
The same year also saw the launch of our Flagship project, SPIRITS. SPIRITS, an inter-school youth festival, has been going strong and gaining strength year after year. This year, our 15th year of SPIRITS, saw close to 3000 students from more than 40 school participating in the over 45 events of our SPIRITS Competition.
Going Green has been a passionate affair for our club. Along with Nerul Gymkhana we have planted hundreds of herbal plants in a NMMC allocated area and are also taking care of them. Planting trees and taking care of them have been a continuous project of our club. Not just this. Possibly we were amongst the first to introduce more than five years ago, jute bags to replace plastic bags. We are happy that others have followed us.
Our club takes pride in the fact that the boys, girls, men and women we identify through our yearly Vocational Awards Project have scaled great heights after we have identified them and some of them have made a mark for themselves at National Level Competitions.
Our club does it’s best to take care of the health of the underprivileged community. Cancer, diabetics, Eye Camps to name a few. Fitkids, a project to identify malnourished and children suffering from Minor Thalassemia is close to our heart. We have also been carrying out TB awareness campaign along with another NGO for the past five years.
In the field of Education we are going all out to help the underprivileged students. We also run a Shikshaangan ( after school hours coaching centre for the needy). We have also set up an e-learning centre at Salve village. We are making a big stride in this area by having made a decision to build a huge corpus dedicated for the cause of education.
We have very vibrant Innerwheel Club, two Rotaract Clubs and an Interact Club….debates, tournaments, gifting, etc.
Whenever there has been a natural calamity we have not been found wanting. When the floods ravaged the state of Kerala we stepped forward and donated Rupees five lakhs for the construction to the Rotary club of Parur for the construction of a house for one of the affected families. Our Rotarian Anil Kartha personally flew all the way down to hand over the cheque to the Parur Club.
This year, the Silver Jubilee year of our club, we have embarked on an ambitious project, the first of it’s kind in Navi Mumbai, to provide a Milk Bank to the residents of Nerul and Navi Mumbai. The Milk Bank will be installed in D Y Patil Hospital and operated by the hospital. The tentative date for the project completion is March end 2019.
It is not all work and no play. Our club has a large number of family get-togethers and picnics and we are proud of our extended family.
We are all proud of our club.