Three great things about Rotary last week: Abraham, Carpenter Hospice and Owls. 

 

Abraham. At about this point in an exchange student’s year many in-bounds start to feel a bit well, bummed out. You know: distance from home, language struggles and the approach of Christmas.  Abraham may be suffering a wee bit but he sure doesn’t show any signs of it.  Every week he presents a well put together, if accented, summary of his week just past.  His host dad Owen says Abraham does it all himself: drafts his report in Spanish, works away it with on-line translations, prints the script and delivers.  I’m mightily impressed by this young man.

In the past week Abraham told us: He’d seen but not met the Prime Minister; Seen and met the Bare Naked ladies; Ascertained that Bare Naked Ladies is (in this context) just a name not a state of being; Enjoyed Halloween with all of it’s pumpkin and candy and: Run a 5K. All explained to us in English.

 

Carpenter Hospice.  One of this city’s and Rotary’s greatest accomplishments is the creation of the Carpenter Hospice. Around 1997 Mayor Rob MacIsaac and his friend Tony Goodrow mused publicly how fortunate were the residents of Oakville to have a hospice, Ian Anderson House, and how great it would be if Burlington could have one too.  But they asked the community, how do we get started?  

Club President Dean Rutty and I attended a meeting of the four Burlington Rotary Club Presidents and Presidents-elect in which we debated what we could do to support the Mayor.  It was broadly agreed that there was no way Rotary could do it alone but in the end we agreed to tell Mayor MacIsaac that Rotary was on board and ready to lead the charge in a community effort. 

And it happened just like that; we said Let’s Go, and the community rallied with money, design services, a suitable site, skilled labour and building materials. Local businessman Len Carpenter donated a large chunk of the capital.   The Ontario Government played no part, indeed our local MPP kept his distance – there being no love lost between him and the Mayor.

 

Anyway, all of that is as background to the happy event this morning when Bernie Hanna made one of his appearances to hand over a $15,000 Golf Tournament cheque to Carpenter Hospice Executive Director Karen Candy and Medical Advisor Dr. Mo Ali.  As Mo pointed out, without Rotary Burlington may not have a hospice,  and Karen added that 2,000 families are grateful.

 

Owls. Well your scribe jumped in to fill a speaker vacancy and presented a shortened version of a presentation on owls in folklore, mythology and culture ,and the work of the Owl Foundation (TOF).  You can read more about TOF’s work here  http://www.theowlfoundation.ca/
Briefly, TOF rescues and rehabilitates orphaned and injured owls. Most injuries arise from collisions with vehicles. A network of drivers and pilots transport injured or rehabilitated owls from where they were found to TOF and back again; about 50 – 60% of owls treated at TOF are eventually returned to where they were found. Many are too badly injured and die or are euthanized.

Screech Owls and Great-horned owls are quite common; it’s said that if you have squirrels you also have owls. There were lots of owl pictures shown; here’s a couple.