Rotary Club of South Hilo creates therapeutic garden

The Rotary Club of South Hilo came out in force to help the Hawaii Island Home for Recovery create a therapeutic garden for their residents. The effort helped meet the requirements of the Weinberg Foundation to “perform a community service activity for the poor and needy.”

The Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation’s sole purpose is to assist financially disadvantaged and vulnerable individuals and families through grants to direct service organizations. The end goal is to help these individuals and families overcome obstacles and achieve greater self-sufficiency.

The Rotary Club of South Hilo committed to provide a minimum of 100 service hours to a qualified charity on a specific weekend. With the completion of this service project, The Weinberg Foundation will match the work effort with a $10,000 award to be donated to a charity the club designates.

More than 30 South Hilo Rotarians and friends came out on a recent hot and humid Saturday to remove unwanted trees, clean and paint the property’s fence, and design and build seven planter boxes for the garden.

“We are so grateful to the Weinberg Foundation for the opportunity to support the Hawaii Island Home for Recovery and its efforts to provide a place where residents can find solace while working the soil, joy in watching things grow and satisfaction in tasting their good work,” said Rotary Club of South Hilo President Kim Arakawa.

“It was a really hot day, but we had a lot of fun working together as a club to do great things for our community.”

Rotary Clubs are leadership organizations made up of local business, professional and civic leaders who meet regularly, get to know each other, form friendships, and through that, are able to get things done in the community.

The Rotary Club of South Hilo has been chartered since 1956.

For more information about the club, visit www.rotarysouthhilo.org.