In its 26th year of the Rotary Junior Community Award the Rotary Club of Mitchell River, member, East Gippsland Shire Councillor, John White, present-ed certificates to 75 grade six students from 11 local schools.
Schools represented were Gippsland Grammar, Paynesville, Omeo, St Mary’s, Bairnsdale (754), Bairnsdale West, Swifts Creek, Lucknow, Lindenow, Eagle Point and one home schooled student.
The Rotary Club of Mitchell River continues to give grade six students the opportunity to complete a program to develop their personal development skills and to know the part they play in their communities now and in the future.
The award was created by the late Rotarian and school principal, David Hawkey, in 1997, as a result of the Community Relations and Education Project (CREP), a program partnership between schools and communities designed to provide a strategic response to community concerns about the presence and impact of racism, discrimination and violence on the well being of communities and particularly that of young people.
The committee involved for the first time people from all the schools and other organisations working with Bairnsdale youth.

IMAGE: East Gippsland Shire Councillor John White, presented Rotary Junior Community Awards to primary school students recently. PICTURED: Bairnsdale Primary School. (PS)