For this month’s District Grant news item, I have included the requirements that the Lockyer Valley Club places on a school to be eligible for a District Grant Application to be submitted by the club. It is good to see a club setting the parameters that the Rotary Club of Lockyer Valley requires before considering applying for a district grant. The club has been successful on several occasions in applying for grants based on the school breakfast program.
“Our Rotary Club applies for Grants from our Rotary District to fund School Breakfast Clubs in our region. To be eligible for a Grant, a school needs to demonstrate a need and a capability to operate a Breakfast Club on a continuing basis. Grant money can be used to purchase Breakfast Club supplies and where necessary equipment to assist the Breakfast Club to function efficiently. Rotary selects schools for assessment on an annual basis, and if a school has a P & C operating on a consistent basis with adequate resources and enthusiasm to support a Breakfast Club, our Club will make an application for a Grant. A School can commit the resources of the P&C combined with School Staff resources if that will assist to run a viable Breakfast Club. Grant applications close usually at the end of May each year and grants are issued for the ensuing financial year. There is no guarantee that an application will be successful. If a School is not successful in a year, then an application can be made in subsequent years. Rotary requests that if a Grant is made to a School, that Rotary representatives can attend a Breakfast Club to take photographs for publicity. All photographs are sent to the school, prior to publication to receive permission to publish. We hope that your School can take part in the Breakfast Club Grants program. Rotary can attend a P&C Meeting if that will assist with progression of an application for a District Grant.”
The purpose of the Breakfast Clubs is one way to ensure children are provided with basic food at the school. Support for Breakfast Clubs has proved to be very successful in the past two years and the Lockyer Club continued the support in 2024/25 for different Schools. In the current economic circumstances, there are more children coming to school without having any food at home in the morning and often don’t bring any food to school. This is currently an Australia-wide problem and small schools with 50 to 100 students are the ones in greatest need. The Lockyer Club Executive visited schools in their area to establish that they can support a Breakfast Club before they embarked on support for them.
In the past few years, the Lockyer Club has supported three Breakfast Clubs at small schools in the Lockyer Valley.
The first school to be supported by the Lockyer Valley Club was the Glenore Grove Primary School. (21/22) The Glenore Grove community is a small crop farming area in the Lockyer Valley. The area is particularly prone to drought and flooding that has occurred in recent years. During the recent flooding (two events) many farmers in the area had their crops destroyed and many lost farming equipment required to provide income. This has placed financial stress on the parents of the children. The Breakfast Club is one way to ensure children are provided with basic food at the school. The Breakfast club proved to be very successful in the 2021/22 year.
In the 22/23 year the Blenheim State School was the school selected by Lockyer for their second Breakfast Club. Blenheim is a rural locality in the Lockyer Valley Region of Queensland, Australia. It's situated about 7 km southwest of Laidley and 40 km west of Ipswich. In the 2021 census, Blenheim had a population of 264 people. Blenheim community is a small crop farming area in the Lockyer Valley which suffers from the same issues as Glenore Grove. With issues caused by natural disaster, many families lost the financial support of employed parents.
In the 24/25 year the Lockyer Club received a grant of $4,000 to support their Breakfast Club in two local Primary Schools, namely Tent Hill and Gatton.
Clubs should note that if they apply for a particular grant the following year, it will not normally be accepted by the grants committee. However, the Lockyer club has applied for different schools in each of their grant applications and this is acceptable. Several clubs have also applied for grants around training/remedial programs (Equine Therapy) on more than one occasion, which has been accepted as the attendees vary from one year to the next.
