Welcome to the Rotary Hockey Pool For Polio Eradication
You are invited to enter the 2nd annual Rotary Hockey Pool For Polio Eradication sponsored by the Rotary Club of Edmonton Strathcona.
Here’s some interesting facts about THIS hockey pool!!
You could win up to $1750, 4 prize pools, Pool is limited to 500 participants, Entry fee is $20, Every entry automatically makes a donation of $10 to PolioPlus, Every entry automatically adds $10 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 3 trade weeks incorporated into the schedule.
You will also be able to add 50/50 tickets to your purchase with or without entering the hockey pool.
Last Tuesday we had the pleasure of hearing from Lorette Garret, CEO of the George Spady Society, about their various programs. Lorette told us that it first began thirty-seven years ago with George Spady, a United Church minister, whose vision was to give people living on the street with addiction issues a safe place to sleep and hope for a better future. It was first housed in on old church. In 1983, the government funded Alcohol and Dug Abuse Commission became involved and they started the George Spady Society.
The Society operates many different programs housed in various places around the city. All of their programs are fully funded by various branches of the Alberta government, Alberta Health Services, Alberta Community Services and Homeward Trust. Their buildings are leased from various agencies, so they do not have to worry about maintenance or physical plant costs. They do not rely on donations for their programs but do accept donations to help provide food and clothing for their clients. They currently employ about two hundred staff members. Their aim is to provide a safe, non-judgemental service, treat their clients with respect and dignity, and give them an opportunity for change.
Among the services that they provide are a Shelter, which provides a clean, safe place to sleep for up to sixty people. They provide mats on the floor as they are safer and cleaner than cots were in the past. If people come to them in winter and they are full, they call other facilities to find a place for them and ensure they get to the other location safely. In some cases, people who need help, for example, have been stabbed, will come to the shelter first, as they know it as a safe place, so they have recently added medical staff at the shelter to help deal with emergencies. In conjunction with the shelter they also offer several other programs, a Detox Program which has seven beds where clients can stay around the clock or up to four weeks, to help them detox, but are still free to come and go. Another program is the Place of Dignity Program for people who have high needs, mental health and mobility issues, in addition to addictions. This program has six beds. They have found that the provision of these specialised services has reduced the emergency room visits for these clients dramatically. Also located within the facility is their Clinical Access Team, which has many different types of professionals, nurses, occupational therapists, social workers, psychologists, etc., who work with each other to provide many different services to their clients and a bridge to other programs. There is also a Supervised Consumption Service on site, which they spent many years developing. It uses a medical model with medical staff. They aim to use it as a doorway to their other services. All of their medical programs meet Accreditation Canada Standards.
The Society also staffs several housing sites around the city. They provide a permanent supportive place for the seventeen percent of people who do not do well in Housing First programs. Christopher’s Place, is a twenty-four unit apartment building in the west end which is staffed twenty four hours a day and provides their clients with the extra help that they need in order to remain in stable housing. A more recent addition is Balwin Place, another twenty-four unit apartment which provides even more heavy duty supports for hard to house clients. Lastly, they have George’s House, with five beds, which as of February next year will provide a palliative care program for homeless people. It is also staffed twenty-four seven with medical staff. They are also looking forward to opening another facility, Cloverleaf Manor, in Warburg, in partnership with the senior’s lodge, to support people with severe addictions and mental health issues.
Each year the executive of the George Spady Society sits down with a group of their participants and asks them how they feel about their programs. Lorette said that if they can inspire hope again in their clients, they consider that they have done their jobs well.
INQUIRY FOR INTEREST FOR A TRIP TO GREECE IN SEPTEMBER 2019
After two successful Tours of Greece in 2016 and 2018, a couple of club members have asked me if I will be organizing a tour in September 2019. I would like to have an idea of how many members of our club (and their friends) will be interested in participating. The bus tour is about 10 days and takes place in the middle of September. If interested in participating, please send an e-mail to Dimitri Papanicolas at
dpapanicolas@outlook.com . The number of participants is in the order of 20, on first come first served basis. We will also connect with a few Rotary Clubs during the trip. Of course, the tour is open to non-Rotarian too.
The tour will take place in the mainland visiting archeological sites, religious sites, overall site seeing (see map) and of course some local food, wine, ouzo and shopping. Island and cruise tours can be organized separately before or after the tour.
A dollar for dollar match for your donation to my favourite Canadian charity, Amarok,is being offered! Only 4 Weeks! Please read the article and decide if your family has a desire to positively impact the lives of Mothers and Daughters in Bangladesh. They become teachers in the slums by the hundreds!
Ostensibly, democracy is one of the chief exports of the western world. It’s conflated with freedom and is seen as inherently valuable for its own sake. There’s also a belief that once democracy is introduced to a country, the citizens will use it to resolve all the country’s problems.
But Democracy isn’t a pizza: we can’t just deliver it to a society’s doorstep, never giving a thought to what’s on the other side of that door. Democracy, rather, is a tree that we’re transplanting: it requires numerous other factors to help it thrive. An uninformed public, for instance, can’t exercise an effective democracy. Likewise, a corrupt government can stand in the way of fair processes and accessibility. It takes more than the advent of an election to realize the democratic ideal.
Rupa never used to leave her slum. This isn’t strange; none of the women there felt comfortable venturing far from their home. Mobility was just one more privilege of men. She couldn’t read, either. I know that her city, Dhaka, has municipal elections, but how on earth that practically functions in the slums is beyond me, where most people can’t read, almost half of the voting-age population feels repressed by the other half, and even something as simple as going for a walk can be problematic. How does unbiased information find its way into such a place? How does an informed, representative vote come out?
There are a hundred ways in which education has transformed Rupa’s sense of herself. She and her classmates are now leaders in their community. So, when a group of them went to speak to a city counsellor to discuss an unfulfilled campaign promise, that marked a huge shift in the community. Democracy wasn’t achieved when Bangladesh got the vote. But when Rupa marches freely with her fellow students to hold local government accountable, they are taking an admirable step in democracy’s direction.
Strike a Match, Light the way
Really want to make your donation go far? For any donation received before December 5th, Haulover Investments will match your donation! Just make sure you include the word ‘Match’ in your message when you donate. Click here to make your stand for peace and education.
We would like to acknowledge our gratitude to the Rotary Club of Spruce Grove, the Callista Fund, and the Silicon Valley Community Foundation for their generosity in supporting our operations. We are also extremely grateful to all the individuals, Rotary Clubs, and corporations who are supporting us. As Amarok Society donors, you recognize that the world’s education crisis is destructive and inhumane, and that education is a basic human right. Your generous support is leading the path to global education and sustainable peace.
Security for the Future
A new and efficient way to support our operations in South Asia is by donating stocks, securities, and mutual funds. Did you know that when you donate securities or mutual funds you don't have to worry about capital gains tax? To learn more about the benefits, click here.
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