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Team Reports
• Tom Chudleigh
• Susan Sheen
• Jill Maslanka
• Glenn Barenthin
• Alan Ingram
• Marne Huys

You can also download a PDF version of this report from our Distributions page.

The Ranaghat Distribution

Marne Huys — Brampton , ON

We, the very excited SCAW distribution team, have left for Ranaghat, a small town outside Kolkata – a one-hour drive that takes more than two hours because of traffic congestion like cows, roosters, rickshaws, bicycles, and cars travelling in the wrong direction.

The Bengali countryside is extremely colourful, with fruit and vegetable markets, ponds with people having baths, sugar-cane fields, rice paddies, a funeral procession where the women walk at the end, and saris drying on the grass in the hot Indian sun.

During the drive, we think about the children we are about to meet. What are they doing? How are they feeling? This day we will be distributing 984 bedkits.

The children who will receive a bedkit today go to school with approximately forty children in each class. Before we arrived in Kolkata, the teachers had given the poorest children a ‘bedkit registration card’ which allows them to receive a bedkit from someone who is coming from Canada.

Today they will receive their bedkit. Some must travel many miles. Some walk, some ride in a rickshaw, some ride in a truck, some come by bike, and all are very curious and very excited.

We arrive at the distribution in a community park on the Hugli/Ganges River. When the children arrive, they line up and their ‘cards’ are collected and checked.

They go to an assigned place where they are asked to change out of their clothes and into a new set of clothes from their bedkit. Next, they line up to have their picture taken in front of a set-up bedkit by a Canadian.

While they wait, we blow bubbles and sing “If you’re happy and you know it.” After the picture-taking, the children walk or run to another Canadian and receive their very own bedkit given by you, the donor.

This is the time that we see that warm look of unbelievable appreciation in their beautiful eyes when they say “Thank you,” or “Namaste” as they take their bedkit and join their family for the journey home after an incredible, unforgettable day.

Thanks to you, the donors, for allowing me the privilege of meeting these wonderful children. Thanks also to Gautam Basu and his energetic team of Rotarians for a great job well done!