2023 Community Investments

 

 

 

In addition to supporting the Holiday Hampers programme coordinated this year by Nourish Food Bank, we have Better At Home draw up a list of ten or so local shut-in seniors who could use some Christmas cheer.

 

We are immensely grateful for Rotarian Bev Haluschak who pulls together all the goodies and then, with spouse Cam, puts together the baskets the rest of us then get to deliver.

 

The elves duly delivered on 23rd December.

 

 

 

 

 

Scroll down and you'll see what we did in January. On November 2nd, we returned to NorthStar Church to prepare another 180 meatloaf dinners; apparently "much sought-after" meatloaf dinners, at that!

 

Thanks to prior experience and an excellent team leader in Nicole Audet, we began processing, chopping, boiling, blending, and cooking at 9am and were loading up the last container just before 12pm. Since North Cariboo Seniors Council could only store 160 or so dinners, we delivered a shopping bag of containers to Nourish Food Bank. And we even found a home for the potato peelings: CaloWarren Crossing Farm.

 

An excellent investment of $500 or so for the groceries (courtesy of unsolicited donations from our guests on the Seniors Expedition to Barkerville) and about 43 hours of collective volunteer time!

 

More pictures in the photo album... 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Quesnel Pipes & Drums are present at all of Quesnel important formal occasions, most notably Remembrance Day, but its at informal events that they raise/earn funds to help cover the cost of their uniforms and provide training opportunities for their members. 

 

As with so many others, their fundraising ability was deeply impacted by the COVID pandemic so we were glad to be able to help with the cost of sending members to the Piping Hot Summer Drummer School ("The World's Largest Bagpipe and Drumming School!") at Silver Star, Vernon. Participating members pay half, Quesnel Pipes & Drums pay the other half - we provided a grant of $1,500 towards the QP&D share and longtime piper Lisa McCargar accepted our grant cheque from incoming Vice-President Linda Turner at our lunchtime meeting of June 22nd.

 

 

 

 

Quesnel & District Museum and Archives celebrates its 60th anniversary in August 2023 and we wanted to mark the occasion in some way, so our members decided to designate $600 in our "Happy Bucks" as a donation to the Friends of Quesnel Museum. Not one of our larger donations but the Friends told us it would be enough to proceed with their plans for acolour, updated print of their brochure, "Historical Walking Tours of Quesnel".

 

President (and former Rotarian) Honey Affleck accepted our donation cheque from incoming Vice-President Linda Turner at our meeting of June 22nd. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Every kitchen needs an oven, and a commercial-sized kitchen needs a big, heavy-duty one. Theirs broke down over at Branch 94 and needed to be replaced. The price tag was about $16,000.

 

Cue Shane Thon, owner-operator of Fraser River GM-Chevrolet, to pick up the phone and ask local businesses to contribute $500 each. By the time we heard of his initiative, he already had commitments over $13,000, but of course we wanted to contribute - the Legion hosts our weekly meetings, of course we had to contribute...and so we did!

 

This isn't our story, though, and Quesnel Cariboo Observer tells it better than anyone - click here for their piece.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Not a local community project but we wanted to include how we sent $3,000 to Rotary Club of Uzhorod, Ukraine, to help sponsor the cost of children, ages 7 -15, participate in 14-day summer camps in the Carpathian mountains. 

 

The funds were raised by our Taste the World event in February, along with some additional personal donations, and the children are amongst displaced by the war with Russia, relocated away from their homes and families to the relative safety of south-west Ukraine.

 

 

 

 

 

Quesnel River Archers have been helping local archers develop their skills for a very long time and, for the second year in a row, hosted the B.C. Provincial Indoor Championships over the Easter weekend, April 7-9. Click here to read about it.

 

In anticipation of so doing, they applied to us back in December for a grant to help acquire an Archery Timing System (in competition, archers have a set time limit in which to shoot their arrows). While they have borrowed such equipment in the past, they felt the time had come to get their own, not just for competitions but also for competition practice. We agreed and approved a grant of $2,000 for the purpose.

 

Update: the equipment didn't arrive in time for the indoor competition but it got its first workout at an outdoor competition at Pioneer Park over the weekend of June 25th at which President Laurey-Anne Roodenburg was able to catch up with the Archers' and their dedicated President Stu Murray.

 

 

 

 

 

A new community group to us but Cariboo Stock Dogs has actually been around for many years and recently revitalised.

 

This coming May 13-14, they are hosting their "Wild & Woolly Stock Dog Trials" in the Alex Fraser Park Arena and realized they needed various items of equipment - portable bleachers, sheep panels, drive panels, pens, and PA equipment. Between our grant for $1,500 and Community Futures $2,500, they'll be set to put on a good show  this year and beyond.

 

President-Elect Marg Anderson presented our grant checque to Deborah Armstrong, Cariboo Stock Dogs director, at our lunchtime meeting of March 16th.

 

 

 

 

Under the Meals Delivery Program now operated by North Cariboo Seniors' Council (initially kicked off in Quesnel by Better at Home), upwards of 200 meals are prepared and delivered to local shut-in seniors.

 

A complementary service to Meals on Wheels, the Program aims to help address the issue of food security in this day and age of rising prices, as well as the issue of isolation.

 

On January 12th, 18 club members and spouses peeled, sliced, diced, chopped, and mixed what is becoming our famous meatloaf (can it be "famous" after only two previous preparations?!), with mashed potato and mixed veggies, all under the watchful eye of NCSC Meal Coordinator Nicole Audet who was also inducted into our club on the same day (along with Carol Mankowske).

 

All in all, an investment of $700 to sponsor along with rolling shifts from 9am til about 1pm and 198 containers were nestled in the North Star Church freezer awaiting delivery. And the really nice part is there's enough in each container for two meals...although our self-appointed Quailty Control, Richard Palmer, had no problem polishing off some surplus ingredients!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2022-23 Rotary International Theme