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Welcome to the Rotary Club of Oakville Trafalgar

Service Above Self

Lunch at 12 noon on Thursdays
Le Dome

1173 North Service Road East
Oakville, ON L6H 1A7
Canada

Phone:

(289) 813-5540

Email:

info@rcot.ca

District Site

Bulletins

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2019 8TH ANNUAL RIBFEST AN AMAZING THREE DAYS OF FUN FOR THE COMMUNITY

June 21 to June 23 saw blue skies and radiant sunshine as the club managed the 8th annual Oakville Family Ribfest at Sheridan College's Trafalgar Campus. There was a free Kids' Zone with fun activities and games, roving entertainers on stilts, or dressed in costume, a well attended amusement area, 9 ribbers, a wide assortment of food vendors with everything from Halal to liquid nitrogen Yeti snacks, plus 29 vendors selling a wide assortment of goods and services. And it did not end there. We also had sponsors with special booths like Home Depot, Access Storage and Film.ca There was football bowling, the Oakville Blue Devils, animals for all ages, the big RAM truck display and test drives and perhaps some of the best live entertainment ever heard in Oakville. On Saturday night Elton Rohn rocked the festival.

Our 50/50 winner has been identified and is in the process of the collecting his winnings of $9,312.00!

An event as big as our Ribfest can only happen because of the volunteers from the community, and our club, who do all the jobs from Stage Management to recycling, from gate management to driving people movers, to helping build the site to tearing it down. So THANK-YOU to all of our volunteers. The 35,000 people that attended this year had a great and safe festival because of you.

Sometimes people ask us what Rotary does and this is what we do. We have fun raising money so that we can give it all away to deserving local and international causes. 100% of all proceeds go to these initiatives. Every $2.00 voluntary donation makes a difference in someone's life so the Rotary Club of Oakville Trafalgar thanks the immediate community and environs for your help with our cause.

Only a year to go until we do it again!

2019 EDUCATION AWARDS

The Rotary Clubs of Oakville came together to honour 32 deserving high school students with Education Awards that will help with the cost of college and University. Previous recipient and Donna Messer Service Above Self Award winner (2017) the guest speaker Zeus Eden gave an inspiring speech to the over 140 dinner attendees.

The 2019 Education Award recipients that were in attendance.

See more pictures of the evening and award recipients at the photo album titled 2019 Education Awards accessible from our home page.

TINY HOME SOLD!

Our Tiny Home has been sold and a celebration was hosted by The Centre for Skills Development & Training on Saturday November 24. See the video below from the event.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60PkGyVJk-U

The story below was first published in January 2018.

The Centre for Skills Development & Training, and the Rotary Club of Oakville Trafalgar have launched a new Tiny Homes program to benefit disadvantaged communities, workers, and the environment.

Tiny home communities are proving to be a viable affordable housing solution in many parts of the world. In Canada, the tiny house movement addresses several pressing social issues: access to affordable housing, environmental impact, and now, thanks to the new innovative Tiny Homes program from The Centre for Skills Development & Training, even th employment skills gap.

The new program, launched in partnership with the Rotary Club of Oakville Trafalgar, will provide program participants with valuable new employment skills, while minimizing the waste-to-landfill and carbon emissions created during the training process. In addition, the fully weatherized, CSA approved, all-season tiny homes built by The Centre will, upon completion, be dispatched to disadvantaged and indigenous communities around the country, or soldwith the proceeds being used for a range of other good charitable causes.

"We really feel that this program addresses multiple issues now affecting communities around the country" said Rotary Club executive Lauri Asikainen. "Not only will it provide valuable skills training for students, but the homes they create have tremendous value, not just as social housing, but as green living spaces, or for people downsizing, adventure traveling, vacationing, or just trying to lead a simpler life."

According to Senior Program Coordinator Ellen Faraday, this new program will also make good use of The Centre's resources, reducing the construction training program's waste-to-landfill and carbon emissions. "Before the Tiny Homes initiative, students in our residential construction program would build partial walls or mock houses that would need to be torn down and sent to landfill at the end of each course. Now, these walls will be combined and mounted on a mobile platform to create a modular, movable, permanent home for someone in need."

Without the help of the Rotary Club of Oakville Trafalgar, GEM Windows and Doors, Tukstra Lumber and Rush Trailers, this program never would have gotten off the ground", said The Centre's Manager of Marketing & Communications Dean Lorenz. "We're privileged to have these amazing partners involved and that they saw the same potential in this program that we did. It really is a win-win for we everybody".

Above members of The Centre receive the cheque for $10,000 presented by the Rotary Club of Oakville Trafalgar at the Tiny Home Inauguration.

SPREADING THE WORD ON ENDING POLIO

On October 27 the Oakville Rotaractors, along with members of the Oakville Clubs (including the new Passport Club) staffed a table at Oakville Place mall to inform the public about the fight to end polio.

WORLD POLIO DAY FLAG RAISING

In recognition of World Polio Day the three Oakville Rotary clubs organized a raising of the Rotary flag at Town Hall yesterday.

Oakville Mayor Rob Burton and Regional Town Councillor Jeff Knoll (who is a Rotarian) and well as members from the 3 clubs were in attendance.

WINES & LINES CELEBRATES CANADIAN AUTHORS

Canadian authors Craig Davidson, Amy Jones, Trevor Cole attend the Wines and Lines panel discussion with moderator and Member of Parliament Pam Damoff at the annual fundraising event held on October 11. Craig Davidson is the author of The Saturday Night Ghost Club. Amy Jones is the author of We`re All in this Together. Trevor Cole is the author of the Whisky King.

30th ANNUAL STRAWBERRY SOCIAL

The 30th annual Strawberry Social event was a real hit with all our guests. Over 160 seniors and their care givers congregated at the Knights of Columbus hall in Oakville this afternoon where they partook of a special Strawberry shortcake. The added scoop of ice cream made it that much special especially on this warm afternoon.

The weather gods were with us and all the iced tea and lemonade we got as donations, went down easily on this hot Sunday afternoon.

It was delightful see so many seniors hit the dance floor and dance away to tunes from days gone by. Tim Allan, our entertainer has entertained our guests for several years and with sing sheets in hand, many sang along.

Our incoming Rotary president, Karen Milner welcomed our guests and our final speaker, the Mayor of Oakville, Rob Burton welcomed our guests and handed them each a pin representing the town of Oakville. That was a nice touch.

Some of our guests won raffle prizes and, everyone went home with a goody bag with items donated by two fabulous corporate citizens - Shoppers Drugmart in Oakville Place and Husky Foods in Mississauga. Our cake was donated by Monastery Bakery and the lemonade and iced tea came from Fortino’s on Lakeshore. The beautiful flowers that our guests took home were a gift from Fortino’s on Dundas and our ice cream was donated by Metro on Rebecca. The raffle items were donated by Sobeys on Upper Middle Road and Maple Grove Mall. We handed out special cupcakes to those who celebrated a birthday in the past month and, we have to thank Cupid’s Cupcakes for their generous donation. Every year, all our corporate donors make our event that much special and for this we are truly grateful.

Vanda ,

Many, many thanks to you and the Rotary Club of Oakville Trafalgar for making the Strawberry Social such a wonderful event. I thought it was a very successful 30^th anniversary celebration!

Our clients and volunteers all enjoyed themselves and the feedback was very positive. It was great to see that conga line!

We at Acclaim Health are very grateful for the partnership we have with your Rotary Club. Your members make everyone feel so welcomed and special.

Thank you again for all of your hard work to make this such a successful event.

Testimonials

One of the coordinators gave me some stories and feedback that she received and I wanted to share it with you.

From a daughter:

Dad had so much fun at the social. I was as surprised as you were that he got up to dance but it was amazing to see. I told my Mom and showed her the pictures I took (client and wife amicably divorced) and she was delighted to hear how open he was to meet people and to have fun. It's been so long since we've seen him like this. This is just another way that you (Joanne) have made our lives better and helped me to keep Dad at home with me.

From a volunteer:

My client was so happy to be there and to see me and to see you. Everyone was so happy and she was too shy to dance and me too but I think she might next time. She was so happy she came and her daughter said it was very special that we invited her. She thanked me so much for being her special friend and to taking her to such a special event. She felt much younger in her years again at and after that party.

From a client:

Thank you for inviting me to the social. I wasn't sure how I was going to feel, going without my husband for the first time. Many first times at things without him have been very difficult. Here, everyone was so happy to be there and happy to be with other people and I felt so welcome and so included that there was no room to feel alone. It was a wonderful afternoon and I think it may be a sign that I'm doing okay without (husband) - not perfect, not my old self, but okay - so thank you for that.

These are just a few examples of how the Strawberry Social really makes a difference in our clients’ lives.

Thank you again for 30 years of support!

Patricia Blakeley

Director, Community

Acclaim Health

AND MANY THANKS TO ALL OF OUR CLUB VOLUNTEERS, SOME OF WHOM ARE PICTURED BELOW!