Your scribe was late getting to this morning’s meeting due to still another closure of the QEW in both directions. I was awakened by my clock radio and luckily heard about the closure and sprung into action to get to Rotary. I therefore hope that I have captured what happened for the 15 minutes of meeting that I missed. Thank you Lawrence Leung, our President, for providing me with his outline of the meeting.
Guests: Sean Thompson, Smith Funeral Home and a prospective member; Norm Crook from the Food Bank; Tara Petch and Melissa Foley from Habitat For Humanity as well as Anel, our exchange student from Estonia.
Announcements: Two issues from the Board Meeting of the club. 1) It was decided to make Ron Lambert an honorary member; 2) The Treasurer reported a financial loss of $451.79 on the cost of covering the cost of our breakfast at the Board meeting. A motion was made to offer members a program whereby they could prepay their breakfast costs based on a net cost of 85% for the period of July 1 to December 31. 3 meetings should be excluded –BBQ, Remembrance Day and Christmas. The discounted rate assumes that not everyone will have 100% attendance. It was never clear to me how this would recover any lost money without an increase in payment per breakfast. Bob Martin led a lengthy discussion on the subject which resulted in no clear solution or approval of the motion. The Board will revisit this subject.
The feedback from the meeting held at the Food Bank was very positive whereby the food was considered very good and few missed the usual events that usually start our meetings off each morning.
The next Off-Site meeting will be held at The Rock on Oct 25th and hosted at the Lions Club, 471 Pearl St.
Telling Tales was very successful last Sunday with Janet Canavan reporting a wonderful event with great weather. Over 7,000 books were exchanged at the Book Swap.
On September 13th, The Passport Club, a new club serving the area between Burlington and Oakville received its Charter. As a goodwill gesture, our club donated $100 to help them get started.
Owen McElhinney reported that the International MOB cluster is meeting tonight at Owen’s home at 7 PM. They have 2 projects underway in the cluster and are now working on another. Owen hopes to advance our proposal having to do with a project down on Abraham’s Island. The Peru Rotary Club is trying to come up with a project in this regard.
Rod Collard reported on the Club’s Mystery Tour. He said it is going to be a lot of fun. They need about 50 people to participate to make it work. Cost is $60 but it includes dinner plus prizes and the bus. It runs from 12:30 to around 8 PM on October 13th from Mapleview Mall. Anyone with money in their pocket is welcome to attend.
Rod also reported that he is helping with the Ride To Provide program that the Burlington Food Bank is running. It is being held on Friday September 28th at L A Fitness at 11:00 AM running until 3 PM. Lunch is being served. He is looking for a sponsor for this event.
Sheila Welham reported that she and her Committee is working on youth exchange recruitment and will be going out to High Schools to bring the program to the attention of interested students.
Nominations for District Governor, 2021-22 is now open. Please pass any names to Lawrence for furtherance.
Sergeant at Arms: as there was no S @ A last week, Mae reported that catch up was in order. Fines were levied and Happy/Sad dollars collected. Johanna Hahn was named Rotarian of the Week for her involvement on the International Committee, being a host when Rotarians and others come over from overseas, her work with the breakfast program and being a Past President of a club in Chatham. Mae reported that there would be a surprise Sergeant next week. Everyone is asked to bring meat (canned) (not fish) next week for donation to the Food Bank.
Anel – Our Exchange Student from Estonia: Anel missed last week and started off by saying that she had nothing to do with missing it. She has started school at Burlington Central High School which she depicts as being something out of a TV movie. Her main focus is the fact that it has no A/C and the heat was unbearable for the first week. The windows were wide open and it was hard to focus on her subjects. The classes were interesting however. She commented that there were a lot of exchange students at Central which lessened her learning about Burlington and the surrounding area. She has been selected to participate in a Musical Production which she is really looking forward to. She went up to Meaford where she met a lot of Rotary exchange students. She also went, on another weekend, up to a cottage near Parry Sound where she almost froze and had to wear 2 sweaters. She flew in a helicopter. She also described coming home when her host parents were away and set off the house alarm which caused the cat to go crazy. It took some time to get it shut off and she was worried about the police coming and finding a person from another country in the house.
Habitat for Humanity: We had 2 speakers today from Habitat for Humanity (HFH), Tara Petch and Melissa Foley. Nancy Penney, our convenor for today’s meeting introduced Melissa who holds the position of Manager, Resource Development/Team Experiences as the first speaker. Nancy has a strong interest in this organization, a Christian housing association which gives people a hand up – not a hand out.
The HFH that operates in Burlington is structured so that it covers Halton and Mississauga. Its focus is to provide decent and affordable places to call home while at the same time promoting home ownership. Currently there are 15,000 families in Halton that are in need of affordable low income housing. In 2017/17 they built 13 townhomes in Burlington, 2 in Milton and 1 in Acton (in conjunction with Community Living). In 2018, they have embarked in providing 22 homes and 75 homes over the next 3 years.
Money for HFH is raised primarily through monetary donations (100% goes directly towards home building) and through their Restore program which also helps to fund their administrative costs (20% of funds raised). The Restore program relies on 100% donated items, is 80% volunteer based and in Halton/Misissauga is responsible for raising $1.5 million which goes directly into home construction. In addition, 210,000 Kg of waste is diverted from landfills annually. They also have a Revive Centre which is designed to repair, refinish and renew items – mainly furniture, for later sale in the Restore stores.
Volunteers form a big part of HFH’s operations. Over 15,000 volunteers have helped HFH Halton/Mississauga since inception. They help in all facets of the operation.
Recipients of housing have to meet the following requirements – 30% of family income to be directed towards housing; 22-56,000 income level; no interest mortgage provided; 500 hours of sweat equity to be contributed either directly towards construction or in the office, Restore, etc.
Construction of the homes involves on average 20% paid staff and 80% volunteers. Usually only townhomes are built in this area due to the high cost of home construction and land costs. Most home projects take 24 months to complete. Ownership is set up on a rent –to- own basis whereby after 25 years they will eventually own the home. They get some money back if they happen to move to another area. Currently, a townhome complex of 18 homes is under construction at 2384 Queensway Dr in Burlington with an expected completion date of 2019.
HFH Halton-Mississauga received a grant of $5.8 million pledge from the Ontario Government to house a Factory Build whereby housing would be built year-round in a controlled environment for HFH throughout Ontario – sort of a prefab concept. They also have a Habitat Handyman program as there are over 7000 homes in the service area that are in need of renovation and repair. Low rate assistance will be available for those needing help.
Financial help is always needed as are volunteers but sponsors can also help by sponsoring the building of a home. We, or anyone, can help by volunteering to help build a home (Build With US). They also have Group Challenges that can be set up for specific projects such a construction of a playhouse which is later sold to raise money. Nancy Penney later talked about building playhouses as a Rotary Group Club Project. More discussion will come on this later.
Tara added to the discussion but due to the lack of time her presentation was cut short.
Rene Papin thanked the speakers and presented the Polio Certificate.
Next Week our Guest Speaker is Fred Lawlor, the Director of HIP (Housing Indigenous Peoples).
