Paul Bentley, head of community action at Oswestry School gave an inspiring talk at Borderland Rotary Club last week explaining how he has been developing community awareness and empathy among his students, since he joined the school some four years ago.
Paul said, “We have tried to instil the old mantra, ‘to learn is for life, not just for school’ into students so that they understand how society works and realise that community is what we should value above all. Of course, to be honest, some of our early volunteers joined us because they saw it as an easy option but as we have got involved with more and more projects, we have seen new recruits making a positive choice to be part of the group. We’ve been working with nursing homes, Oswestry in Bloom, Star Housing, the flowers on the Broad Walk, by St Oswald’s Church in Oswestry and, last but by no means least, Borderland Rotary and I have been really inspired by the passion and enthusiasm of Justin and Sherie Soper at Borderland and I’m pleased to say we now work together on a regular basis”.
Paul listed some of the joint projects he is doing with Borderland – Operation Christmas Child; one hundred shoe boxes are filled with goodies for young people who may otherwise have no presents at Christmas – Purple for Polio; purple crocuses planted in the parks and Star Housing areas to help the worldwide fight against Polio and Rotoract, a young person’s version of the Rotary Club, a great community enterprise.
Justin, while thanking Paul for his warm words, said how wonderful it was to work with likeminded people and how very proud the club is that the new venture is called the Oswestry School Borderland Rotoract Club.
Pictured L-R: Paul Bentley (Oswestry School), Peter Martin, Sherie & Justin Soper (Borderland Rotary).
