Paul Harris monument in Great North Road gets a facelift after 23 years

The Rotary Club of Benoni Van Ryn recently completed a facelift of their Paul Harris monument in Great North road.

The monument was erected in 1998 as part of the 1997/98 Rotary theme, “Show Rotary Cares”, to remind Benoni that local Rotarians do cares.

Twenty three years since the erection of the monument, past president and now treasurer of the club Charmaine Cole-Niven said the cement structure had started to crumble, the surrounding paving area was overgrown and starting to fall apart, the signage was faded and the Rotary wheel was looking shabby, indicating that it needed to be given a facelift.

“The men from our club used their skills and ingenuity to strip the monument of the wheel and signs then rebuilt the concrete by creating framework to allow the concrete to set in the form. We then cleaned and sealed the wheel and had new signs printed. That’s how far we got when the lockdown was imposed. On July 18, we went back and painted and sealed the concrete of the monument dark grey, put up the signs and put the wheel back in place.”

She added that all the products needed for the project were donated by members of their club.

“A huge applause needs to be given to those that initiated the project in 1998 as the monument’s structure was still perfectly sound and only needed some TLC to get it back into shape.”

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The monument is named after the founder of the Rotary Club, Paul Harris, who founded the club in Chicago in 1896.

Harris recognised the need to form a national association with an executive board of directors and in August 1910, Rotarians held their first national convention in Chicago, where the 16 existing clubs unified as the National Association of Rotary Clubs (now Rotary International).

He died in 1947 at the age of 78, after a prolonged illness. Before his death, he made it known that he preferred contributions to the Rotary Foundation in lieu of flowers. By coincidence, days before he died, Rotary leaders had committed to a major fund-raising effort for the foundation.

Upon news of his death, Rotary created the Paul Harris Memorial Fund as a way to solicit these donations.

Rotarians were encouraged to commemorate the late founder of Rotary by contributing to the fund, which would be used for purposes dear to Harris’ heart.

In the 18 months following his death, the Rotary Foundation received $1.3-million, which helped support the foundation’s first programme, scholarships for graduate study abroad.

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