Generous sponsorship, thorough planning, expert management, and ideal growing conditions has given the Rotary Club of Ashburton Plains a record yield from its annual Christmas “New Potato” Marketing Project.
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| Rotary Club of Ashburton Plains Projects Director Past President Ken Leadley (left) and President Ray Mayne (right) with the last dig of new potatoes.Photo credit: Ashburton Guardian Newspaper |
For nigh on 20 years, the club Projects Committee has honed its skill in harnessing the generous opportunities of land, seed, and fertiliser, donated by individuals and commercial enterprise to produce sought after gourmet spuds for Christmas tables. Planted in late September, optimum product comes to the consumer in the days before Christmas. This season, thanks to extraordinary conditions, paddock production has been the biggest ever, with 2884 4kg bags coming on stream and sold between December 14 and January 9.
Community expectation for the club’s high quality product now dictates that fresh potatoes are dug almost every day leading into the festive season through a series of short duration, pick, weigh, pack, marketing forays undertaken by the club membership. In a now well established and mutually valuable relationship with the Ashburton Rowing Club, rowers (often on short notice call out) are shoulder to shoulder with Rotarians picking spuds as older Rotarians weigh, bag and pack the product. Orders or sales are canvassed from the town’s business fraternity and their staff, as too are restaurateurs and home makers. In a new departure this year, a “Hawkers” License permitting street side selling assisted in the disposal of the additional volume grown.
This season 164 bags were donated to local food bank agencies, the “lonely’s” annual community Christmas dinner, age concern dinner, and as a thank you gift to some loyal business people who support “Plains” Rotary firewood, potato, and pea straw projects with donated plant, goods or services.
Ten dollars is not a lot today, but times 2700 bags makes for a situations where cash is king. For their efforts, Ashburton Rowing Club is each year, the first beneficiary of money raised. While the Rotary club does not have a pre-planned agenda for the capital fund, local, national and global initiatives and sponsorship becomes the focus of fund distribution or aide. $10,000 to the local Plunket Association, $4,000 to Samoa in a joint medical aide equipment shipment by the “Plains” and Ashburton Clubs, $3,000 performance based Tertiary Scholarship Grant, $1,000 per annum school uniform award to two selected “have-not” students , Rotary Youth Leadership Award, Spirit of Adventure scholarships, and Pride of Workmanship Awards.
Already in this fiscal year over $28,000 of disbursements has overtaken the spud harvest achievement. Plus as most clubs do, PolioPlus, ShelterBox, Emergency Boxes (x2), The Rotary Foundation, and other humanitarian aid projects will receive annual support from the firewood and pea straw sales projects as the year advances.
