Major fundraising event at New Mersey to aid famine relief in East Africa

New Mersey Shopping Park on Speke Boulevard will be the location for an important fund raising drive on Saturday September 3 to raise valuable resources for famine and disaster relief in East Africa and beyond.

The Rotary Club of Garston will be staging an information day for its acclaimed ShelterBox project. Each large green box contains a special disaster relief tent for an extended family, water purification equipment, blankets, ground mats, a stove, cooking utensils, plates, bowls, mugs, cutlery, a basic toolkit, children’s activity pack and other vital items.

It provides shelter and survival equipment for an extended family for at least 6 months but in many cases they are still in uses several years afterwards.

“ShelterBoxes is an international Rotary initiative, which has sent over 107,000 boxes to over 150 destinations in over 70 countries providing shelter, warmth and dignity to people affected by natural or manmade disasters,” explains Rotary Garston’s Gerry Heaslip, who, with his wife Pam will be on hand to show why this aid is so important.

He adds: “It is absolutely vital that we build up stocks and funds to respond quickly to disasters such as that we are seeing in Ethiopia, Somalia and Kenya at the moment. And as our activities are entirely voluntary, that of course costs money. But we are very optimistic that the generosity of New Mersey shoppers will make a significant contribution, and we are grateful to manager, Colin Gilligan, and his team for hosting our fund raising event.”

The ShelterBox display will be located between Boots and WHSmith on New Mersey Shopping Park between 10am and 4pm on Saturday September 3.