WEDNESDAY, MAY 30: After the resounding success of last year’s Royal Wedding High Tea, Project Action is hosting second royally-themed fundraising event — the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee High Tea.
The charity works regularly with seniors in St George’s Parish Rest Home to make their lives as enjoyable as possible and uses its two mini buses to escort them on day trips and to medical appointments.
The special event takes place at the Fairmont Hamilton Princess on June 3 from 4pm.
Co-Founder Cindy Swan said: “We decided that in honour of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, recognizing that Her Majesty was only accepting gifts to various charities, we would celebrate the Diamond Jubilee here in Bermuda with a High Tea charity event to help offset our budget for Project Action.
“Although we are not a gigantic charity, with our humble operation, we fill in the gap for many transportation challenged seniors. We love our seniors and have become attached to each other.”
Many of the clients depend on the Project Action service because, some not only do not have family members to help them out but can’t take public transportation nor afford private transportation because they are wheelchair bound or live too far, some up steep hills, and on fixed incomes private transportation is out of the question.
Project Action’s driver Ernest ‘Shuby’ DeGrilla is on the road most mornings at 6am, taking his passengers to their dialysis appointments. The dialysis center opens up at 4am so it’s an early rise.
‘Shooby-doo’ as he’s affectionately known, said: “It’s very sad at times because I will go to pick up a client and find out they have passed on, that how sad it is — they don’t have a love one to call and tell me they have passed on”.
He said that some seniors’ families and extended family need to try and do a bit more to help out their love ones.
Project Action’s blue bus which is driven by volunteer Raul Clementino, provides free outings to the various rest homes on a monthly basis.
The blue bus also provides free transportation for Windreach, the End to End and other organizations for their functions.
Project Action vehicles can be seen at Cup Match, the boat parade and at the National Stadium for national games.
“Our seniors help to build the foundation we all stand on today, and we need to show them we care and they are appreciated,” said Mrs Swan.
“We take transportation for granted, but not all are fortunately in good health nor financially capable to afford their own mode of transportation and this is where we at Project Action try to bring some assistance. We go out and fundraise with traditional and out of the box initiatives, to keep the transportation service free. In these stressful economic times, it’s not easy but through the grace of God, somehow we always seem to manage.”
The Ministry of Health, Validusre and Rubis Bermuda Limited are the main donors of Project Action, in conjunction with holding these fundraisers that keep the wheels of the two vehicles rolling.
Mrs Swan added: “We were extremely fortunate that our new Governor, Mr George Fergusson, and Mrs Fergusson, even before arriving on island, accepted to be the patrons of the event being held at the Hamilton Princess June 3rd at 4pm.
The Project Action Queen’s Diamond Jubilee High Tea takes place at the Fairmont Hamilton Princess on June 3 at 4pm.
Tickets are available at www.bdatix.com. Tickets range from $50 each for a Welcome Guest to $500 for Gold Patrons. Gold Patrons are sold out but Welcome Guest, Silver and Bronze Patrons tickets are available. The Patron tickets will receive a Diamond Jubilee Memorabilia which just arrived from the UK. For more information can call 535-9801 or email projectaction@northrock.bm. If you are unable to make the High Tea, donations are whole-heartedly accepted at Butterfield Bank a/c# 20020060282255210.