Acts of Kindness Day being honoured in Prince Rupert

Acts of Kindness Day is on April 19 but Prince Rupert Rotary Club is encouraging acts of kindness all week long.

Lori Wilson Rotary Club member said the day is in recognition of the Rotary International founder, Paul Harris’ birthday. and Rotary clubs are asked to do acts of kindness in their communities to honour him.

Anyone who has entered Prince Rupert since April 15, will have seen the beautified McBride St. gateway at McClymont Park which has been repainted and had new flags hung to welcome entrants to the city. More than 1o Rotarian volunteers literally got on their hand and knees to clean up and paint the ground mounted Prince Rupert banner which hasn’t been done in almost four years, Bev Killbery 2021 president-elect, said.

“We try to strive for a week of doing acts of kindness for the community,” Killbery said. “Given the situation we are in now [with the pandemic] it’s nice if there are others doing acts of kindness. As Rotarians, we’re benefitted by a whole week of giving to the community.”

Wilson said the Prince Rupert club has been completing highway clean up for a couple of years now and will be collecting garbage along the roadside again on April 24.

“We thought the timing was perfect for another cleanup as our act of kindness,” she said. “The weather is good, it fits in with Rotary’s new area of focus, which is the environment. It’s something that we can do together as club members, along with friends and family, while maintaining all COVID-19 protocols.”

“Rotary’s goal is to improve our communities, whether it be our local community or the wider global community and to facilitate that, Rotary has seven areas of focus which give us some important priories to concentrate on,” Wilson said.

“The Areas of Focus are: peace building and conflict resolution; basic education and literacy; disease prevention and treatment (eradication of Polio worldwide is a major goal that is almost complete); water sanitation and hygiene; community economic development; maternal and child health; supporting the environment, which is a new focus as of last year,” she said.