Bruce catches young smiles

By Lia Bichel
A NARRE Warren man who enjoys helping young patients through his voluntary work at the Dandenong Hospital, has been awarded a Holt Australia Day Community Service Award.
For more than 30 years, Kiwanis Club member Bruce Gower, a former teacher, has maintained a six-foot tropical fish tank at the children’s ward at the Dandenong Hospital.
“I like to contribute, and I have always been into tropical fish,” he said.
“I would like to keep helping out for as long as I can.”
Mr Gower is the longest-serving member of the Kiwanis Club of Berwick, originally called the Kiwanis Club of Dandenong when it was formed in 1974.
Kiwanis is an organisation devoted to helping children throughout the world and projects are designed to build better futures for children and others within the community.
Kiwanis International has more than 13,000 clubs in more than 90 countries and has more than 600,000 members.
The local club’s involvement with the Dandenong Hospital began in 1977 when Mr Gower was the club’s president.
The club built and sold a house in Dandenong and used the proceeds to provide physiotherapy equipment for the hospital.
At that time it also bought, installed and stocked the fish tank in the children’s ward and since then, Mr Gower has taken on the responsibility of servicing it.
Club secretary Norman McLennan said Mr Gower’s continued involvement for more than 33 years was a “truly magnificent example of dedication and community service”.
The Kiwanis Club has also supplied calico trauma dolls to the children’s ward and donated funds to help buy the first portable pulse oxymeters.
Kiwanis has also contributed to other clubs and organisations, including funds for wheelchairs and ramps to houses for people with disabilities.
Mr McLennan said the group prided itself on carrying out practical, hands-on tasks.
“Our most recently completed project, completed on behalf of Scope, was a front fence and a gate for a family in Hampton Park who have an autistic child,” Mr McLennan said.
Mr McLennan said the club was always interested in hearing from people looking for ways to contribute to the community.
The club meets at 7.30pm on the first and third Tuesday of each month at the Central Hotel in Beaconsfield.
Anyone interested in joining should contact Norman McLennan on 9707 1938.