There were several pieces of business done at the meeting today, starting with President Mark's comments on the planned tree planting in Rotary Centennial Park in Dunmore. Because of COVID rules, the size of the work party's must be limited, so a block of time on Friday April 30th has been reserved, from 3:00 pm to 5:00 pm. Mike Christie will be sending out sign up sheets for everyone who can attend.
Community Service Director Melanie Harty explained the process, and provided some feedback on how the project had progressed.
As everyone will remember, during our Centennial year of 2018, the RI President Ian Riseley challenged every club to plant a tree for every member. Our club believed we could do better than that, and because of the 100 year anniversary funded the planting of 100 trees in this new park in Dunmore. The park is on the east side of Eagle Butte Road, north of Eagle Butte High School. Hopefully it will become a valued part of the community in Dunmore and a lasting memorial to our Centennial.
Melanie also spoke about the work that the Community Service Committee has been doing, particularly on a large, meaningful project within Medicine Hat. The group had been introduced to an organization named "SANARE"(formerly SARC), which is the Latin word for "healing", and the organization is a service provider to promote healing within sexual assault victims. Their executive Director, Chris Johnson made a presentation to the Board of Directors on Tuesday evening, and because their work is focused on children, the subject matter was most distressing. They are currently leasing a new facility to deal with almost 200 children annually who experience this trauma, and the opportunity for Rotary is to work on a welcoming lobby area, to make children feel at ease.
Although the project is not fully fleshed out, the Club was asked to approve the application for a District Grant to provide partial funding of this project. A final approval will be brought before the club once everything is planned, but the District Grant must be applied for by Friday, or we miss our window for this year. The club members present approved with a show of hands, proceeding with the application and were interested in hearing the presentation once the work is fully identified.
CS Director Melanie also spoke about the "Do Crew", the name for our project team from the club who will be going out to various locations and performing community service. The group will be tasked with various projects, as COVID restrictions ease and those kind of work projects are possible again.
International Service Director, Terry Cooper provided a number of updates on our work overseas.
- Our "Make 'em Smile" Denture project in Sri Lanka will be finished next month, and a total of 390 dentures will be fitted. It is "on schedule and on budget", and a report will be coming to the club in due course.
- Our participation in the "3D Limb Printing" project is moving along, there are five Calgary clubs and at least one in Ontario are of this team. They are waiting to confirm the financing, after changes to the Global Grant program with Rotary International. This work is also going on in Sri Lanka.
- The "Tenderfoot School Kitchen" project, in Nairobi, Kenya which our club participated in this year is also moving along, Kitt Brand has received photos of the construction work beginning and the work is proceeding.
- The International Committee is currently studying a large, multi club project in El Salvador designed to provide clean water and sanitary facilities to 500 Public Schools.
Terry is also the lead on "Team Freewheel" and he provided an update on recent donations of refurbished bikes, 8 to the Catholic School Division and 6 which are going to International Students at the MH College. The group also was introduced to an organization named "Bike - Medicine Hat" who may provide other contacts, or perhaps so help at repairing bikes. The work has been enlightening and we are being more selective about the bikes that are being picked up from the MH Police compound.