The ‘Ray of Light’ initiative was one of the projects that were taken up by the Rotaract Club of PanColombo, with the intention of providing basic necessities to those who are less fortunate with some festive cheer this Christmas Season.
The main aim of the project was focused on providing meals and essentials to children and elderly people living in homes and orphanages. However, this was not the plan during the onset of the project; the initial plan for Ray of Light was to provide a counseling center for those in rural areas to be able to have access to such services, where we planned on distributing stationaries, toys, and a meal. However, we had to change our focus as we identified that there were even more pressing needs in the community; there was a dire need for basics such as pharmaceuticals and good, healthy meals.
As this project was powered via open donations, we put the word out to the public through our official social media accounts and personal contacts, to raise donations and provide for the less fortunate. The response that we got was overwhelming, with the club receiving more donations than we had initially anticipated! This paved the way for us to decide on having 2 phases within the project.
Through Phase 1, the club was able to provide pharmaceutical items to the elders of “The Moratuwa Social Service Society and Home for Elders”. It was handed over on the 17th of December during their Christmas concert, where we joined the elders and preschoolers to celebrate Christmas.
With the donations provided to us, we were able to not only provide the Elders Home with several pharmaceutical items but moving into Phase 2 of our project, we were also able to collect money to provide dry rations for some families in Batticaloa on the 27th of December.
Our project is one that has really shown the real spirit of the season. We had a very unexpected turn, but in the true festive spirit, everything fell into place perfectly.
Penned by
Rtr. Damithri Kariyawasam
Rotaract Club of PanColombo
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