Rotary in St. Pierre with St. John’s Northwest
Here’s a tale of the power of partnerships, the legends of Rotary. We connect Rotary in St. Pierre with St. John’s Northwest; with Emberley’s Transport, with the volunteer power of Deloitte and we all impact upon the Boutique of Marguerite’s Place!
Marie-Thérèse Legentil, a resident of St. Pierre (a French island off the south coast of NL) collects good used clothing for all sizes and sorts of people; and washes, separates and packs them. This is a labor of love to her. At the point when she had numerous boxes and even pallet (a pallet is a 4 ft square) she approached her local Rotary Club for help with the distribution of this fine clothing. They readily helped her with cars to move boxes and they supplied packing tape and empty boxes to help with the packing.
Yannis Urtizberea, the President of the Rotary Club of St. Pierre, was confident he could rely upon the network of his Rotary District to find people in need of this quality clothing. All Mme. Legentil asked was that the clothing be available free of charge (not sold) to people who need it. Yannis engaged Rotary District Governor-Elect Tom McCaughey for advice and contacts.
Tom approached the District’s Community Service’s lead Gail Gosse. She knew that the Rotary Club of St. John’s Northwest had an established partnership with Marguerite’s Place – a space with affordable, fully accessible programming and supported housing in a women-centered environment (http://www.margueritesplace.ca/home/). Marguerite’s Place confirmed they could distribute clothing from their Boutique and that as they were moving into their new space, this donation to the Boutique was so very timely. In addition, as Deloitte has selected Marguerite’s Place for Deloitte’s 2011 impact day (community service), there would be extra volunteers to help receive and sort the donations.
With this knowledge, St. Pierre and St. John’s Clubs arranged in-kind ferry transportation from St. Pierre and the island of Newfoundland and for tractor-trailer transportation onto St. John’s. Not only did Emberley’s Transport carry the over ten palates, for months they stored the over flow of clothes in order to enable Marguerite’s Place to more slowly accept the huge shipments. This was no small task as the total shipment was over 150 boxes of clothes! This of course enabled the Boutique to more carefully unpack boxes and set up the displays in the Boutique.
A postscript to this story is that Mme. Legentil continues her good work and clothing and goods can be available to other Clubs for their projects. The proviso will be that the goods must be made available at no charge to the recipients. Interested Rotarian might contact DGE Tom McCaughey.
