Report

My Local Community Project.

The "Combined Morrinsville and Tahuna Lions club" Slinky calf fundraiser is a local community project that makes a difference in our local community. It provides much needed funds for local kindergardens, play centers and schools around the Matamata Piako area. The project has been running for about five years and involves the members of the Morrinsville and Tahuna Lions clubs and there partners. Many of the members are farmers so they realised that there was a value in the dead calves (or slinkys) and that if the clubs worked with other farmers they could make enough money that they could share it around the area.  It was set up by them because they realised that all of the schools, kindys and play centers were always having to fund raise for equipment and materials for the children because the money they were given by the government was not enough. The members of the clubs were happy to give some of there time to the project what this involved was contacting their friends and neighbours within the farming community and asking what they normally did with their dead calves. Most farmers simply threw them down the offal hole on the farm. This was because the slinky calves were only worth a few dollars each and so it was not worth each farmer taking them to the skin processors them selves.

With the support of the farming community and the hard work of the Lions members they collected over 7000 calves during the calving season. They received between four and five dollars per calf giving a total of around $30,000. From this the group paid their costs of petrol and the rest was left to be divided up between the groups. There is a dinner were all the schools, play centers, the farmers and the Lions club come together and the Lions club hands out all the checs.

The project is successful because the Lions club has been able to get calves from farmers around the Matamata Piako, send them to the skin prostheses and get money for the schools, play centers and kindys for there kids to get a better education.