The Rotary Club of Balwyn was sponsored by the Rotary Club of Camberwell & established in 1972. There were 30 members at the first meeting. Of those original members, four are still with us and we now have over 90 members.

Our first project was for the Bulleen Special School when we allocated $4300 to provide a bus for the school. Following that, we helped the Yooralla Special School with a $1500 grant for art & craft facilities for their 150 disabled children and the Balwyn YMCA with a grant of $2890.

In those days, these were considerable amounts of money. Very few service clubs were able to raise this sort of project funding. However, we had members with vision who developed an idea that has given the Rotary Club of Balwyn the unique ability to have serviced many major projects since those early days (see below)

Over the years we have been involved in projects ranging from small donations or acts of assistance up to major projects exceeding $100,000. One of our biggest project in earlier years was the $70,000 construction project for the Marwal Avenue Senior Citizen’s Centre in North Balwyn.

Other notable projects

Many of these projects have been ongoing with donations spread of a number of years. All project applications have to be fully justified and are stringently assessed in terms of their suitability, value and benefit.

• Earthquake and tsunami disaster relief in Turkey, India, Afganistan and Malaysia ... $103,700
• Children First Foundation ... $40,100
• Projects in East Timor ... $36,870
• Corio Secondary College single mother's childcare facility ... $34,400
• RMH Breast Cancer research ... $21,750
• Epilepsy Foundation building expansion ... $33,270
• Royal Lifesaving Society radio equipment ... $17,260
• Life Education Centre establishment & support ... $332,300
• Peer Support Foundation establishment & support ... $432,000
• St John's Home for Children ... $307,000
• Baker Medical Institute for research equipment ... $ 100,000
• Food Bank project ... $110,450

Very little of this would have been possible without a strong income stream to support it. Our club has been incredibly fortunate to have had members with vision who conceived the potential value of a public market. The Rotary Sunday Market at Camberwell Junction in Melbourne was built from that vision in 1976 and since then has generated in excess of $8.5M all of which is used for charitable purposes.

For more information about the market, click here.

Rotary is a living, breathing organization & in order to stay healthy, it has to grow. This means that Rotary clubs all over the world sponsor new clubs. Balwyn Rotary has been active in this endeavour.