District 9800's Dream Fifteen raised $3,695 for Pinchapoo's project SMASHING #HYGIENEPOVERTY and helped to break two Guinness World Records: the most tables used to make a word (#hygienepoverty) as well as the most hygiene packs, packed in one hour. We did it!
What an honour and privilege it was to be able to complete my first project as President-elect for the soon to be chartered Rotary Elsternwick with our partner Pinchapoo, vying to break two records for the Guinness Book of World Records.
Kate Austin, CEO and Founder of Pinchapoo (short for “pinch a shampoo”) is responsible for creating a cheeky hotel ‘pinching’ movement 12 years ago and has since been able to redistribute in excess of 10 million personal hygiene products to hundreds of thousands of disadvantaged men, women and children around Australia.
And today, the partnership I was so very fortunate to create 2 years ago for Rotary, gives all of the clubs in our district the opportunity to order quarterly using the order forms that they receive, as many personal hygiene packs that they need for their projects free of charge. Kate has also donated thousands of products to our Bush Fire, Drought Relief and End Trachoma projects, just to name a few.
So, when Kate invited District 9800 to be part of breaking two Guinness Book of World Records at Caulfield Racecourse on December 5th, how could we say no!
The first thing that we needed was a Rotary Dream Team - and what a GREAT one we had with Wendy Sterling, Kate Strain, Doug Thompson, Seema Lal, Akinsola Akinbiyi, Barry Smith, Colleen d’Offay, Sue Dight, Anthony Langley, Fabienne Nichols, Peter Lewis, Gabe Hau, Sandi Fulcher and myself all onboard and ready to roll up our sleeves and pack our little hearts out. The team did a bit of personal fundraising as well and between us, we were able to raise $3695+ with District 9800 arranging a further $5000 from a Corporate Sponsor.
The day was a resounding success with Pinchapoo breaking both world records – 5,900 Hygiene packs made in one hour and 501 tables made to use the word #HYGIENEPOVERTY with Rotary representing the letter “G”.
A heartfelt thank you to the super amazing Rotary Dream Team, to everyone that donated to the project and to IPDG Philip Archer for his mentoring and support for the upcoming Rotary Elsternwick, which will charter in April or May of next year, and arranging the $5K Corporate Sponsorship.
Sylvie Berchick
President-elect
