e-Strathconian, 15 Feb 2024 (Feb. 15, 2024)

Thanks for visiting our site! The first ClubRunner site in District 5370

"The Friendly Club"

Tuesdays at 12:15 PM

Woodvale Facility and Golf Clubhouse

4540 - 50 Street NW
Edmonton, AB T6L 6B6
Canada

Our Club meets every week with a twist. The first three weeks of each month on Tuesday at the Woodvale Club and the last week for a meeting and social at a location, date and time to be determined. Members will be notified by email of the details.

District Site

Rotary Club of Edmonton Strathcona

Venue Map

Buy A Book of Lunch/Meeting Tickets Here

Jul. 01, 2023 – Jun. 30, 2024

RCES Casino 2024
Pure Casino
Feb. 20, 2024 9:00 a.m. – Feb. 22, 2024 4:00 a.m.

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No Advance Registration or Payment Required for Meetings

There will be no advance registration or payment for our weekly meetings at the Woodvale Community League. The meal cost is $25 at the door.

Jeff Day, Inner City Youth Development Association

Posted by Vi Hughes on Feb. 15, 2024

Jeff Day with club member Jim Pedde

This week we welcomed Jeff Day, a member of the leadership team from Inner City High School and Youth Engagement Program. Jeff told us that the Inner City Youth Development Association (ICYDA) was started in 1986 by Dr. Joe Cloutier as a means to help poor inner city youth with their basic needs in the hope that they would be better able to focus on their schooling. Joe started working with street engaged youth who had no stability in their lives and most did not have access to any specific school. To address this problem, in 1993 he started the Inner City High School which ran in the Boyle Street Community League building. In 1994 they moved to their present location near the Royal Alex and are an Alberta Education accredited High School. They serve inner city youth aged fifteen to nineteen and provide wrap around supports such as food, with a hot lunch and after school snack, counselling and help with medical, legal and housing issues to help them to be able to complete their schooling. They provide housing referrals, help with court proceedings, provide medical support, addiction services and suicide prevention services. They try to provide these youth with the tools, resources and attitudes to help stabilize their lives.

Many have come to the city from elsewhere and have no stable place to stay or steady means of support. Most test at an elementary school level of education and have attended anywhere between ten and twenty-seven different schools in their lives. Of the ‘street’ youth they serve, some live in group homes, many live in unstable/unsafe housing and some are totally homeless. Most of their young people come from indigenous backgrounds. The school and it’s staff are the one stable thing in their lives.

Jeff told us that in an average year they have between one hundred and eighty and three hundred students go through their program. The programming they provide is specially tailored to the needs of these young people, with all of the community supports woven into the program. The school has thirty three staff members, half of whom are teachers and half support staff. They also have an Elder on site to help students who want to learn more about their culture. He said that the cost of their program is about twenty-one thousand dollars per student per year and they do receive government funding towards some of this cost. The government only covers three years of schooling and many of their students need more than three years to complete their schooling. They also provide a twice weekly food bank, daily meals and transportation to school for their students which are not covered by government funding. All of these extra items are supported by donations.

We would like to thank Jeff for taking the time to come and tell us about this very deserving local program.

Tammy Wiebe, Classification Talk

Posted by Vi Hughes on Feb. 07, 2024

Rotary President Elect Loida Lumanlan with Tammy Wiebe

This week we welcomed Tammy Wiebe to tell us a few things about herself. Tammy is the Executive Director of the Valley Zoo Fund Development Society. Her rotary classification is Fund Development. Tammy told us that she came to Rotary through Dennis and Donna Hutton as Dennis has served on the Valley Zoo Fund Development board. She came to know Donna when she approached her about our club sponsoring the zebras. Tammy said she has been a member of our club for one year now.

Tammy told us that she was raised in Red Deer by a single mum in a family of five children and is herself a single mum with three grown children and three grandchildren. She said that she worked for many years in marketing for various large law firms around Alberta. More recently, once her children were grown and gone, she became interested in giving back to the community and volunteered for the Valley Zoo board. She soon realized that she really enjoyed the work there and found that her business background was a valuable addition to their board. Gradually she became President of the board, where she served for two years and started hiring people with more professional backgrounds for the Zoo. A few years later she decided to take a pay cut, leave marketing and become the Executive Director for the Valley Zoo Fund Development Society. She found that it was a steep learning curve working for a charity board but she truly enjoys her work and has not looked back since. She has been at the zoo for twelve years now and said that doing something you are truly passionate about makes all the difference.

Her latest endeavor at the Zoo has been fundraising and building a new wolf habitat that will open later this year. Another one of her projects has been ‘Pay it Forward for the Planet’, where the zoo subsidizes the cost for classrooms of children from poor areas to visit the Zoo when they make a commitment to take on a conservancy project. The Zoo has now sponsored over eight hundred students under this program.

We would like to thank Tammy for telling us a few things about herself and look forward to getting to know her better in future.

Wheel of Fortune Prize Donations Needed

We are desperately in need of more donations for our Wheel of Fortune. Please bring your donations to the meeting with you and give them to either Ken or Eric Germain. Small, new items such as wine, small gadgets, candy, books and any other small non-perishable items are welcome, in particular something you yourself would be happy to win!

Club History, Local Community Service Projects

Posted by Vi Hughes on Feb. 15, 2024

Right from the beginning one of the basic tenets of our club has been to support community projects with an emphasis on helping women and children in need. The projects we have supported have changed over the years as the interests of our club and the needs of the community have changed. Some of the community projects that we have supported over the years are:

ARCH Enterprises, founded by the Edmonton Southside Rotary Club in 1973 and where since 1986 our club has provided board members and helped with fundraising to help them deliver vocational programs for disabled adults in the Edmonton area.

The Old Strathcona Historical Foundation, where we provided both funds and volunteer labour to build and promote neighbourhood meeting places such as the McIntyre Park Band Stand (Gazebo) which was inaugurated in 1980.and the Old Strathcona Caboose Visitor Information Center which opened in 1992.

Habitat for Humanity, where we provided volunteer labour to help build homes for families in need.

Mustard Seed, where we provided volunteer labour to prepare and serve meals to the needy in our community.

Valley Zoo, where we have provided funding for the building and maintenance of animal habitat for the Grevy Zebras.

Fort Edmonton Park, Edmonton District Rotary Project, where we provided funds to help complete the visitor center /train station.

YONA, Youth Orchestra of Northern Alberta, where we provided funds to support the purchase of instruments for children in several inner city schools.

YESS, Youth Empowerment and Support Services, where we provided funds to purchase furniture for the lobby of their reception center and also towards the purchase of a van to be used to transport clients to appointments and meetings.

Meals on Wheels, where we have provided volunteer labor to prepare and portion meals for their handicapped and/or elderly clients.

Run for the Cure, where we provided funds and volunteer staff for a water station for those who were running to raise funds for Breast Cancer.

Operation Red Nose, where we helped in support of local charities to provide volunteer drivers to transport people home after a night on the town.

Comedy Club drivers, where we provide volunteer drivers for the entertainers who have come to Edmonton to entertain for the annual ATB Financial Edmonton Comedy Festival which raises funds for charity.

WIN (Women in Need) House, where we provided children’s pajamas and Christmas gift boxes of small gifts, personal care items for the women and children staying in their residence.

Inclusion Alberta where members of our club have provided employment opportunities to their clients.

Hope Mission, where we provided volunteer labour to prepare meals for those in need and also collected clothing for the use of their clients.

Coats for Kids where we collected clothing for children in need in our community.

Edmonton Food Bank, where we provided volunteer labour to sort food and pack hampers for those in need.

Ronald McDonald House, where we provided both groceries and prepared meals for families staying at their residential facility for families with children who are receiving care at the Stollery Children’s Hospital.

Pilgrims Hospice Society, where we provided fund to support their services for hospice clients.

Tools for Schools where we collected and donated school supplies and backpacks to an inner city school.

Edmonton Crisis Unit where we collected funds, purchased and wrapped Christmas Gifts and Hampers for Social Services to distribute to several families in need.

Ukrainian Canadian Social Services Edmonton where we donated Christmas gift boxes for new immigrant women from Ukraine.

Don't Bottle it Up

Polio Plus Society

4-Way Test

RI link: 4-Way Test