Renfrewshire Rotary club donate £2,500 to Kilmalcolm rehabilitation centre

A Renfrewshire Rotary group has handed over a “generous” donation to a Kilmalcolm rehabilitation centre.

President Sai Kumar, on behalf of Gryffe Valley Rotary, presented The Haven with a cheque to the value of £2,500.

The centre provides ‘transformative’ support and rehabilitation for men with drug and alcohol addictions. One of the current projects is to acquire a horse box and convert it into a mobile crepe and coffee van.

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The money from the Houston organisation will be used to fund the acquisition of the van and complements funds already in place from the Vardy Foundation.

The Kilmalcolm facility works with various organisations to support potential residents to transition to rehabilitation within the community; and aims to educate and equip individuals as much as possible so that they can move onto independent living and re-integrate into the community, while also increasing their employment opportunities.

Jason Murphy, a Haven support worker, said: “I can’t thank Gryffe Valley Rotary enough for providing these generous funds to help facilitate the project.

“We at the Haven are looking forward to bringing this really exciting project to fruition, and your funds help this aim enormously.”

Gryffe Valley Rotary says its fundraising over the last few years has “concentrated on local mental health and dementia charities” with The Haven being one of them.

Earlier this year, the club created an award-winning path, 19 miles long, to encourage people to take up walking in the area. The Gryffe Valley Way is a route that connects five of the seven villages around the rotary club and links to the Clyde Coast path network.

Mike Farley of Gryffe Valley Rotary added that The Haven’s work with people going through challenging times was noted and paved the way for the funding award.

He said: “We are very impressed by the work of The Haven with recovering addicts and delighted to support this project to establish a mobile cafe. The funds we have employed were raised through this year’s Gryffe Valley 10K Run.”

A post on social media from Gryffe Valley Rotary also outlined that members were keen to help people break free from the “benefit culture”.

It said: “This project aims to serve the dual purpose of providing mental and physical well-being as well as knowledge and experience that could also benefit individuals with future employability, by providing training and employment opportunities in a supportive environment.”

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