THREE RIVERS. – The local non-profit community organisation, Proudly Three Rivers (P3R), has made huge strides in the past years to help restore the town’s dignity and general appearance.

The ongoing aim is to enhance the environment, health and safety for the public and to enforce resource conservation. By accomplishing this vision the residents will have a neat, orderly and clean town that is environmentally safe.

With this in mind P3R’s ultimate goal is to attract more investment to the area, which in turn creates more jobs that are desperately needed.

A clean and orderly town ensures that the property values stay stable and increase accordingly in value over time.

The organisation’s work mainly comprises of cleaning the town, cutting grass in public parks and sidewalks, repairing as many potholes as possible and sealing as many cracked roads as possible in the whole of Three Rivers.

As might be expected, such work requires great input, for example:

* In 2021 alone, in order to maintain the area, the organisation used 4 700 x 25kg bags of tar.

* 60 x 210 litre drums of liquid bitumen.

* 55 cubic metres of sand and ash filling.

* More than 7 500 litres of fuel.

* The cost of maintenance of their equipment is an ongoing expense.

P3R manages to do all this admirable work with limited resources and with a staff of only 15; this is excluding the five board directors that give up their time pro bono doing all the ground work behind the scenes, making sure that P3R functions as efficiently as possible with the limited funds available.

P3R is desperately looking for more financial help from the local businesses and the residents of Three Rivers to enable the organisation to expand its scope of work, and to resolve other problems in Three Rivers that due to financial constraints are not currently being addressed.

At present, out of the 7 000 households in Three Rivers, only 414 are contributing donors.

On many occasions P3R has been asked by residents and businesses in the area for a guideline of how much the organisation needs from each household and business to make a real difference and so, with this request in mind, they have come up with the following:

* A contribution of only R200 per month per household.

* Businesses to contribute as their budget allows.

If P3R can achieve this type of contribution they will be able to make Three Rivers Gauteng’s town of choice in which to live.

In September 2021 P3R registered as a Public Benefit Organisation and can now issue Section 18a donation certificates to contributing members which they can use for their individual or business tax return purposes.

“When we pull our strength together, share the work, responsibilities and costs, we are able to achieve our goals and make Three Rivers the proud town it once was and that it deserves to be,” says P3R’s Chairman Chris Johnsen. “Our residents’ financial support is crucial to the survival of P3R and more importantly for the future prosperity of our town. Our long term dream and goal is to create our own improvement district that will become a leading concept and example through-out SA.”

To find out how you can become a member, send an email to info@proudly3rivers.co.za or visit Facebook: https://web.facebook.com/proudlythreerivers.

Proudly Three Rivers’ Office can be visited Mondays to Fridays from 8:00 to 12:30 at Shop B52, River Square Mall, Three Rivers (opposite Three Rivers Post Office).

For more information, contact Admin Officer Bonita on 060 562 0816.

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