Prepared by John Rose
Announcements:
Tara Gutscher from Canadian Blood Services, a guest of Rick Bolzon, presented on Rotary’s adoption of helping improve blood donations. Tara is the key contact to help cross promote both the donations of blood and Rotary. They are in need of additional donations as a result of the recent change in days between donations for females.
New member Nathan Chung, sponsored by Ian Robertson was inducted into the club.
The 50/50 Pot was $106 and there were no winners.
Speaker:
Linda Kenny and Lisa Talbot presented on behalf of KidsAbility (KA). Rotary is the largest private funder of KA, having donated just shy of $550,000 during our relationship.
Celebrating their 60th anniversary in 2017, KA has roots with Rotarians that date back before 1957 where members would assist those in need with drives to Toronto to medical appointments and specialists in helping children in need. KA has seen over 6300 children, resulting in over 53,600 visits throughout 2016.
Rotary helped launch the Spark program, which dramatically helped reduce long wait lists that had become commonplace through their regular programming. Based on a team approach, servers can be blended and mobile, which helped sponsor a 95% satisfaction level with users. KW Rotary’s $30,000 donation last year helped provide almost one child per week with the assistance they required.
