Tamborine Village Lions Club and Lions Club of Kandy, Senkadagala Join Together For Project To Provide Food Packs To Families In Need …
The Lions Club of Kandy, Senkadagala, in Sri Lanka, has been established for 41 years. Lion Srilal Mendis was born in Sri Lank and has spent ten years as Treasurer for the Kandy Club, and one year as President. In 1991, he migrated to Australia with his wife Christine, to whom he has been married for over 45 years. They have three children: two daughters Dilani and Shenali who live in Brisbane with their families, and one son Mario who resides in Vietnam as a Sofitel Hotel General Manager.
Sri Lanka is also the original birthplace of our very own Lion Shirlene Pott who introduced Lion Srilal and Christine at the Tamborine Village Lions Dinner Meeting for March, visiting from Senkadagala as part of a collaboration between the two clubs.
The clubs became sisters with the main idea of helping the most deserving people in the Senkadagala area, especially during the last two to three years when co-vid took its toll. During this time, Sri Lanka experienced financial devastation and with no social security safety net in place, a project was mounted with a goal to ‘feed the hungry people, to conserve the environment, and to enlighten the youth for the future’.
The Tamborine Village Lions raised funds to contribute to the project which enabled 100 regional families (from a carefully selected list made by the remote village’s council) to be supplied with food packs in recyclable cloth bags (a $20 food pack of rice, dahl, flour, sugar, teas, and spices can sustain a family of 4 for 7 to 10 days. Meat is not usually available, only eggs). As well, the Tamborine Village Lions also provided stationery items for children and students of the village.
Due to the remote location of the villages (being mainly tea plantations in mountainous regions), it can take over one and half hours to travel just 40kms to reach the village,
The Lions Club of Kandy is also involved with building houses for deserving people and providing medical equipment to assist with medical services for remote areas. As part of this endeavour, a Melbourne Lions Club also donated a respirator.
Thank you Lions Clubs, your community work is most essential!