The FOUR Rotary clubs in Oakville formed an alliance or cluster to address the COVID-19 pandemic. Credit goes to the Assistant Governor, Bent Fink-Jensen and Community Service Director of D7080, Norma Gamble for jumping into gear as soon as it was made public that we had a challenge ahead of us.
All four Presidents joined Norma and Bent on Zoom and decided to create a fund called the Oakville Rotary Relief Fund. We would focus on Food security, Personal Protection Equipment (PPE), and Education. The four clubs invited the community to have their donations doubled and by the end of 2020, together with a successful District Grant, we collected almost $50,000. Donations to deserving community organizations were made on a regular basis by the Community Service Chairs, supported by the dynamic PR and Communication cluster. The media gave us terrific coverage and we were excited to be working across Rotary club lines. We even decided to form Membership clusters, bringing the FOUR membership chairs from each club, to address the challenge faced by many Rotary clubs today. We all agree that the Rotary Cluster has power!
The result of this exercise is that all FOUR Rotary clubs in Oakville generated almost $50,000 to benefit the Oakville community during COVID-19, and have therefore decided to continue the dynamic cluster format, in the spirit of fellowship and cooperation.
