.... for Children who usually miss out!

In 2003, Rotarian Len McLean presented the Rockhampton South Rotary Club with an idea to raise funds from local businesses to send disadvantaged children and their families to the cinema free of charge. The Club eagerly adopted the concept … and the Rockhampton South Rotary Club Film Festival was born.

Due to the enormity of the project, the Club engaged the assistance of a producer and telemarketer, and in the lead up to Christmas of that year, Club members found themselves handing out drinks and packets of chips to hundreds of school children and their parents and carers, some of who had never been to the cinema before. Such was the success of the event, all cinemas in Rockhampton were booked and filled to capacity, prompting the need to run a second show in January.

To identify the disadvantaged children to attend the event, the Club targeted schools with a significant number of socio-economically disadvantaged students, as well as organisations that provided assistance to handicapped and disabled children. Attendees at the Film Festival were families who could not otherwise afford to take their family to a cinema to see a movie, or families who were uncomfortable taking their disabled child to the cinema for fear of the disruption that their disabled child might create. The Film Festival intent was to remove this stigma and concern, and allow families to see their choice of a newly released movie in a supporting environment.

After three years of very successful Film Festivals in Rockhampton, the telemarketers canvassed businesses further afield in the Central Queensland area and the Rockhampton South Rotary Club invited the Rotary Clubs of Gladstone South and Emerald Sunrise to share in the project and utilise the cinemas in Gladstone and Emerald. This negated the need to bus children and their families from those areas to Rockhampton and resulted in the additional funds raised from the project being distributed to the Gladstone South and Emerald Sunrise Clubs for use in their communities.

As we approach the 20th anniversary of the Film Festival, the generosity of businesses in the Central Queensland area has resulted in approximately $2 million being raised to date. Excluding fundraising costs and costs to stage the Film Festivals, in the order of $400,000 has been contributed back into the local communities to assist disadvantaged kids. For Rockhampton South Rotary Club members, enormous satisfaction has been gained over the years ushering in excited kids and families, complete with drink and a packet of chips, and from witnessing the joy, excitement and appreciation of parents and carers for a rare opportunity to see a movie; something many of us take for granted.

The Rotary Club of Rockhampton South has supported many worthy local projects over the years, such as:

· providing breakfast for students at socio-economically disadvantaged schools

· provision of a specialised hearing device to the Mt Morgan High School to assist with communication between Teachers and a hearing-impaired student, resulting in a dramatic improvement in the student’s attitude and ability to learn

· providing specialist teaching and play equipment and facilities for Special Needs Units and similar entities

· supporting a local Special School athletics team to compete in Brisbane and other away games, as well as providing uniforms to compete

· supporting Mt Morgan High School senior students attend a personal development camp on North Keppel Island (also an article in this Newsletter edotion)

· provision of reading books for every Prep School student in the Rockhampton region; this year totalling 1,238 students in 34 local schools.

To keep the project alive over the last couple of years during the pandemic, the Film Festival was transformed into an online streamed Magic Show. While this has been reasonably successful under the circumstances, the Rockhampton South Rotary Club looks forward to things returning to normal and allowing our Rotarians to again welcome those families back to the cinemas.