The first meeting of this calendar year was on the road at Wellspring Chinguacousy.
Wellspring is a cancer support center where people living with cancer and their families can meet, talk, and share their experiences and concerns. 26 Rotarians and 3 guests were in attendance. Some early arrivals took the opportunity to partake in a tour of the premises. Lunch was prepared on premises by the staff.
It was an amazing offsite/road trip meeting at Wellspring Chinguacousy featuring a presentation (Neal McCaffrey and Jenna Courage) and a lovely meal by E.D./Chef Alex Smith. Thank you Gayle Wilding and Rita Gayle for planning a great visit.
President David led the meeting and Alex Smith, executive director of Wellspring Chinguacousy spoke briefly about the facility and the organization. There are 12 Wellspring centers in Canada. Rotary has provided support to the local facility as early as 2006 and which opened in 2008. Since opening the center has served 7700 persons, with 1,700 programs through 112,000 visits. There were 8,500 visits in 2019. The center does not receive any government funding.
Sergeant of the day Rita found the attendees in good spirits and thus collected a generous sum in fines and happy bucks all of which were donated to Wellspring.
We will try to top that this week (back at Carl's Catering - The Glen) today with Dr. Naveed Mohammad from the Osler Global Health Program and presentations from two Past Presidents of our club.