After all the medals and prize money are presented at the 19 February 2012 SPAR Redhouse River Mile, the real winner is sure to be the local communities of Nelson Mandela Bay. Organisers of the River Mile, Zports Event Management, have once again teamed up with the Rotary Club of Port Elizabeth Sunrise to ensure that all proceeds from the Discovery off-road triathlon, Caste Lite Beer Garden and the Rotary Quali Juice Kids Entertainment area will all go towards the community based projects of the Rotary Club.
“The SPAR Redhouse Mile, thanks to Zports, has become the main fundraiser for our clubs annual commitment to the Rotary Foundation,” said club president David Raymer, “The Foundation provides much needed funding for our community based projects through matching grants, which effectively ensures that can almost triple the funding that we raise ourselves.”
“One of our latest projects within the club at the moment is to supply of rainwater tanks to as many local schools as possible. These schools have, through the Wessa Eco-Schools project, established vegetable gardens as part of their school feeding efforts. Most of the schools have large buildings and harvesting rainwater will ensure that they are not relient on purchasing municipal water. We’re confident that with sufficient support at the River Mile, our club will be able to realise a large portion of the needed budget for this project. As part of our fundraising at the River Mile event, our Rotary club will be also be manning a fruit stall, selling watermelons and spanspek donated by Habata.”
The 88th River Mile is taking place at Sundays River on Sunday 19th February with over 3,000 people expected to attend the festival like event. Free entry into the area which is filled with vendors, craft stalls, kids entertainment and the Castle Lite Beer Garden ensures that the families get to enjoy a wonderful outing to Cannonville on the banks of the Sundays River just outside of Port Elizabeth.
“Raising funds for Charity has become a focal part of all our Zports events and it’s great to be able to support such wonderful organisations like Rotary whose volunteers working tirelessly for our local communities,” said Race organiser Mike Zoetmulder. “The River Mile is one of the oldest swimming events in the world and, together with Eastern Province Aquatics, we would like to try and establish the event as one of the signature social sporting events in the country.”
Normal entries for the events close this Sunday with late entries being accepted through to race day. Information and maps of the event are available on www.rivermile.co.za.
Clair Arthur ex of Kingfisher FM and now in Cape Town completes the Redhouse River Mile on 28 February 2010.
