Laura Morie
Rotary District 5370
District Governor 2016 2017
Rotary District 5370 Charitable Foundation is pleased to announce its first grant from the Fort McMurray Fire Relief Fund. The recipient of the grant is Stepping Stones Youth Services of Fort McMurray. Stepping Stones will use the funds provided by the foundation to employ a second Outreach worker to help youth in the community following the Wildfire. This funding provides support for the Outreach program that will help youth complete high school and successfully transition to adulthood. The program has enabled youth to remain in school and further their education to become trades and professional workers and productive members of the community.
It is taking time for Fort McMurray to rebound from the fire. The Foundation looks forward to announcing additional grants in the coming weeks and months.
Rotarians and other individuals from across Canada, the USA, Caribbean and other parts of the world contributed a total of nearly $1 million to the Foundation's Fort Mc|Murry Fire Relief Fund. All of these funds will be used to assist the community in rebuilding, both physically and socially.
HOW TO GET INVOLVED IN ROTARY PLAYGROUND PROJECTS WORLD WIDE
Wendy Andrews (Chair of District 5370 Playground Committee)
What: Canadian Municipal Playgrounds that are in good shape and destined for the landfill are obtained and refurbished by the Emmanuel Foundation and made available to Rotary Clubs for their projects around the World.
Who: Rotary Clubs in District 5370 work with Rotary Clubs around the World, with a focus in Belize and Honduras, to determine where the playgrounds should be built in any given year. The Rotary and Interact Clubs of Canada and Belize work together to install and paint the playgrounds and work with the children, families and communities in the development of play leadership skills.
The Funding: for each project cycle, a CIP (Community Initiatives Program – International Development) matching grant is requested from the Alberta Provincial Government. Matching funds come from the partner Rotary Clubs in Alberta. Each playground has 3 or 4 partner Clubs who each contribute $3000 in a Rotary year towards the project. We ship two large playgrounds and medical and school supplies for a total project cost of approximately $30,000.00 CDN.
What are the funds used for: $3000 contribution from Rotary Clubs to the District Playground project are used for the purpose cost of procuring, redesigning, shipping and installing the playground, any special preparation of the playgrounds prior to shipping such as sandblasting and painting, as well as the cost of sending a certified playground builder from Canada.
Additional costs to participating Rotary Clubs would include such things as travel and training of Interact students traveling to the playground builds, costs of any medical, school, sewing supplies that would be used to fill the playground shipping containers.
A Rotary Club can be very hands on getting the playground ready to send or as part of a Rotary team that travels to and helps build the playground. Or a Rotary Club can be less hands-on and choose to donate to a specific project and follow the progress and see the results.
FORT McMURRAY FIRE RELIEF FUND UPDATE
A sincere thank you to the many Rotary clubs, organizations and individuals who have contributed to our district foundation’s Fort McMurray Fire Relief Fund. Through your generosity we have received over $725,000 to date.
It will be some time before the funds will be disbursed. As we have previously noted, this fund is meant for the long term rebuilding needs in the community. In order to provide advice on those needs, the Rotary District 5370 Charitable Foundation is establishing an allocation advisory committee. The committee will consist of two representatives from each of the two Fort McMurray Rotary clubs as well as two representatives from Wood Buffalo Regional Municipality (which includes Fort McMurray). It will be chaired by DGE Frank Reitz, who is also a Fort McMurray resident.
Five years since its debut, Rotary Club Central is getting a big upgrade
When we introduced Rotary Club Central in 2012, it revolutionized goal tracking and planning for clubs and districts — no more filling out paper club-planning forms or passing along boxes of historical club information every time a new leader took office.
Rotary Club Central offered clubs and districts a quantifiable way to begin measuring local and global impact, specifically membership initiatives, service activities, and Rotary Foundation giving.
But as with any technological advancement, in a few short years, Rotary Club Central began to show its age, and Rotarians took notice. They...
