This past Tuesday we heard from Martin Dugas, the CEO of Wellspring Edmonton. Wellspring is a non-profit cancer support organization founded in Toronto in 1992, and has recently opened a new branch in Edmonton in June 2017.
Wellspring provides educational and nonmedical support programs for persons impacted by cancer, including patients, caregivers and family members. Their programs are offered at no cost to participants and are funded by private donations, both institutional and personal. They are located in a new twelve thousand square foot building located on the South Campus of the University of Alberta. This building was built and paid for by the local community. They currently have four full time staff and over one hundred volunteers who provide forty different programs to just over fifteen hundred participants. They also have many more volunteers who help in other ways to support their facility and programs. Each participant takes part in seven different programs on average. The average participant is fifty-four years of age.
The programs they provide include educational talks, patient support groups, the Look Good Feel Better program, exercise opportunities such as yoga, qigong, ACE (Alberta Cancer Exercise), therapy programs such as Reiki and Relaxation and Visualisation. They also offer Arts programs such as Painting, Sculpting, Fibre Arts, Carving, Singing, various instrumental music programs and nutrition programs such as Be Well Eat Well and cooking programs.
All of their programs give participants something to look forward to and provide opportunities to meet new people and enjoy themselves. They also give people a way to express and work through their trauma, and sometimes even forget their pain by giving them something else to think about. They aim to help people to live well despite their circumstances, to live each day the best that they can and look forward to the future.
They are always looking for volunteers to help in any way that they can from helping with building maintenance, to offering programs to making donations. They expect their programs to keep expanding as nine thousand new cancer diagnoses are made each year at the Cross Cancer Hospital in Edmonton.
This is a fair warning to anyone who has not signed up to volunteer at least one shift at the upcoming Rotary Club of Edmonton Strathcona casino to run on May 23-24, 2018.
I have it from a reliable source that the Casino GM, Patrick Gibson is returning fully rested and full of whim and vinegar after Easter. I also hear he picked up a fancy big schtick (read: baseball bat) with which he will provide some persuation.
You were warned!!
The open shifts are listed below. Open this 'Sign Up' link.
This past Tuesday, Tanis Munro, from the Amarok Society gave us a short update and showed a short video on what they have been doing recently. The Amarok Society’s ‘Teach a Mother’ program is based in the slums of Bangladesh and Pakistan. It gives women a basic education for free, on the condition that they then go home and teach five children of both genders what they have learned each day.
This program fills a need for the many families who can not afford to send their children to a traditional school. It also helps to empower women and girls by helping to change gender relations within families and communities. She also said that it gives these children an entirely new path in life, as they will now have access to many educational and occupational opportunities that would otherwise be closed to them.
In closing, Tanis said that she would like to thank our club for our ongoing support for this program.
The Rotary Interact Club of J. Percy High School made their third trip of the school year to Ronald McDonald House for the Home For Dinner Program. They served up dinner for 100 people. An Italian feast of meat and vegetarian lasagna’s , dinner buns, veggie platters, potato salad, fruit plates, juice beverages, and a lovely Easter cake.
The large contingent of Interactors did a great job of preparing, serving, and cleaning up the dinner. In addition, they were busy, including they had a tour of RMH, cleaned, and artistically decorated paper lunch bags for the RMH Lunch Program, while meeting the resident families and staff.
The Danish Twist was not the dessert, it was Andreas , our favourite Rotary Exchange student from Denmark. He is currently being hosted by the Downtown Edmonton Rotary Club. He is attending grade 11 at McNally High School, is a Rotary Interact member at Victoria Composite High School, and has been very active in our Rotary District, including being the guest speaker at a lunch meeting of the Rotary Club of Edmonton Strathcona. Andreas will be the guest speaker at the Rotary Interact Club lunch meeting on Thursday April 19th.
Thanks to our J. Percy Page Teacher Rep, Karen, and newcomer Tuso, the Social Studies teacher who wants to help with the Rotary Interact Club. Also thanks to our great Rotary Drivers, Hans Granholm, Rose Marie Basaraba, Vi Hughes, Dennis Freeman, and Ken Germain.
The Ronald McDonald House residents, out of town families who have sick children receiving major medical care in Edmonton were very grateful, and send a special warm thank you to everyone who helped make this first day of spring special.
A number of volunteer opportunities exists with YESS. The bingo events are listed below. Check also the one day event, YESS 2018 Gala for Youth at THIS LINK.
Hello, We are in search of volunteers to help work at a Caesars BINGO in West Edmonton Mall. YESS has been selected as one of the charities of choice. They require at least 2 volunteers at any of the following dates:
Sunday April 1st – Evening Shift
Friday May 25th - Evening Shift
Saturday September 8th – Afternoon Shift
Thursday October 4th – Evening Shift
Sunday November 25th – Evening Shift
Please let me know if you or anyone you know would be willing to volunteer a shift in support of YESS at the Caesars BINGO hall in West Edmonton Mall. Thanks you so much.
The final trading week is over. Teams are now locked down. Good luck!
Welcome to the Rotary Hockey Pool For Polio Eradication, Sponsored by the Rotary Club of Edmonton Strathcona
Here’s some interesting facts about THIS hockey pool!!
Pool is limited to 330 participants, Entry fee is $30, Every entry automatically make a donation of $15 to PolioPlus, Every entry automatically adds $15 to the prize pool, Each team will consist of 3 goalies, 8 defenceman and 12 forwards for a total of 23 players, get rid of those underperforming or injured players during the 2 trade weeks incorporated into the schedule.
Test your hockey knowledge by building your own team from scratch!
To register click here: http://tinyurl.com/HockeyPool1718CLOSED
After registering you will receive an email with a link to the online pool.
Hockey Pool Rules are as follows:
Pool is limited to 330 participants
Entry fee is $30 Registration closes November 30th 2017 11:50 pm
Every entry automatically make a donation of $15 to PolioPlus
Every entry automatically adds $15 to the prize pool
Each team will be made up of 3 goalies, 8 defenceman and 12 forwards for a total of 23 players
** Teams that exceed the above player allocations will be deleted by Admin**
January 1-7th 2018 is a trade week, teams can trade up to 3 players
March 1-7th 2018 is a trade week, teams can trade up to 3 players
Prize Pool is allocated as follows:
40% of accumulated prize pool is paid to the participant with highest overall team score
20% of accumulated prize pool is paid to the participant with the highest performing group of 12 forwards
20% of accumulated prize pool is paid to the participant with the highest performing group of 8 defenceman
10% of accumulated prize pool is paid to the participant with the highest performing group of 3 goalies
10% of accumulated prize pool is paid to online transaction fees.
**Ties in any of the above categories will be split evenly among winners**
Our Rotary group has partnered in a joint venture with the Rotary Club of Pretoria to help raise funds for the New Hope School in Pretoria. Patrick Gibson has put together a presentation that he will be making to the other rotary clubs in our area to encourage them to help us with this venture. Our goal is to put enough funding in place for us to be able to apply for a Rotary International matching grant.
Patrick gave us the same presentation he will be making to other local rotary groups. It included a short introduction on the New Hope School, followed by a video that has been prepared by the New Hope School. The New Hope School has been one of the projects of our club for some years now, and most of our members are well aware of the work they do in schooling for handicapped children in the Pretoria area. They provide many services above and beyond the usual schooling activities, such as physiotherapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy and many others, as needed by their students.
They receive only basic funding from the local government, so must fundraise to provide these other services. Some of the specific projects our funds could be used for would be a specialised playground, or programs to provide technical skills such as kitchen skills, nail and hair salon skills and sewing skills. Patrick has also put together a ‘Go Fund Me’ page on the web, on which people can get more information, view the video and make contributions. We will also be adding a link on our Rotary web page to this site.
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