A project undertaken by The Levin Rotary club to build a transportable house that could be completed by trades people and sold at Auction to raise money for an appropriate charity has finally come to fruition!The house project was approved in 2015 by the club, plans were drawn up to build a 103 square metre, three bedroom house, with en-suite. A vacant section in the centre of Levin was made available as a building site and local businesses were canvassed for their support. The response from the community was amazing with offers of building materials at cost or donated, free labour provided by tradesmen and money from fundraisers organised by various business houses, even the local council came to the party waiving the usual fees required for such a development.
In August 2016 all the documentation and planning was finally in place and the building of the house commenced. A number of hurdles (challenges) needed to be overcome, builders were overcommitted due to a boom in the housing market, this also flowed through all the related trades causing a slowdown in the staging of the build.
In addition we had a very wet Summer to contend with in 2017 and an even wetter winter to follow. On the plus side the housing market had become more volatile and the expectation on the auction was somewhat better than expectation.In 2018, and now into our third Presidency, the committee overseeing the project made a call to go to auction straight after Easter regardless of whether the house was fully completed or not! To the credit of all involved the house was completed just in time for the auction and was also elegantly furnished for the event. The auction was conducted in fading, end of summer, sunshine with a steady and vigorous number of bids. The Charity House was successfully sold, realising in excess of $190,000 which allowing for GST, accounts outstanding, repayment of seeding funds loaned by the club, enabled our club to make its largest donation to date of $100,000.00 to the Te Hinaki Education Trust, providing over 250 “Chromebooks” for our children.
Hinaki Education Trust was established to purchase “Chromebooks” ( Laptop computers) that are used in Primary and Secondary schools and link to the “Cloud”. The purpose of the Trust is to offer the “Chromebooks” to families, in the Horowhenua, to purchase for their children at a minimal deposit with low weekly payments, making it as affordable as possible for the students to own their own computers. The Trust also insures them against loss or damage whilst in the children’s possession. Monies received go back into the purchase of more “Chromebooks”. Levin Rotary has already donated $10,000 last year by obtaining a Rotary District grant of $5000, which the club matched.Past President Bernard presents cheque to Doug Rowan, chairman of Te Hinaki Trust