Rotarians in Tsawwasssen have once again opened up their hearts and wallets for a worthy humanitarian cause.
In the past few weeks, Rotary Club of Tsawwassen started fundraising to purchase shelter boxes to support aid efforts in Ukraine.
Rotarian Yvonne Anderson said the club has been working with the ShelterBox program for many years, so when the invasion of Ukraine began, millions of refugees left Ukraine and many more lost their homes.
“We decided the best way to help would be to provide housing for people in need,” she said. A shelter box is a house in a box. In the box is a large sturdy tent that can withstand extreme weather conditions and temperatures, clean water, family meals, and more. ShelterBox is an international disaster relief organization that hand-delivers aid to the families devastated by conflict or natural disaster, to give them safe shelter and the tools to rebuild communities.
“One of our members, for many years, helped deliver shelter boxes, so this is an ongoing effort by our club,” she said. “We have given them to Africa before and this time, we decided to fundraise and give three to Ukraine. Some of the shelter boxes are going to areas in the Ukraine as well as in Poland.”
She said the call for fundraising was a simple email call-out.
“A shelter box is $1,250 Canadian, so we set out to raise funds for one and in the small campaign, we ended up with three,” she said. “Rotarians and friends of Rotarians came through. We all said we need to do something for Ukraine and because we are so connected to ShelterBox, we felt the one thing we could do was help with shelter.”
