CENTRE WELLINGTON — The Rotary Club of Fergus-Elora is celebrating $80,000 in community donations over the past year.
Club president Stephen Pollock said there were five main recipients of the club’s donations this year, with Groves Memorial Community Hospital being the largest recipient.
“Our most significant donations out of this $80,000 this year was of course Groves, and then Elora House, the Community Resources Centre, Big Brothers/Big Sisters, and KidsAbility,” Pollock said.
“We’ve donated almost half a million dollars (in total) to Groves … which has been the major project for the Fergus-Elora Rotary Club.”
Pollock said the pandemic has created its share of challenges for the club, which has operated in Centre Wellington since 1966.
He said a big part of Rotary is the social aspect, with meetings and face-to-face gatherings being very important to members.
“Some of our members are elderly, and it’s an outing for them,” he said.
“For a lot of the younger ones, it’s a chance to socialize with like-minded individuals.”
Pollock said the club has been using Skype quite often, which has made it challenging for members to interact with each other.
He said this has been especially difficult for members living in rural areas who don’t have easy internet access.
Despite these challenges, Pollock said he is happy with how the club has pulled together to serve the community.
“It’s a team. Everybody works together for the greater good,” he said.
“It’s a broad spectrum of people. There are businesspeople like myself, retired teachers, principals, just people that are giving and caring.
“There’s a fair number of older people, some newer people, all from the area. Honest, hard-working people.”
Pollock added the club approaches things through an equity, diversity and inclusion lens.
The club has made efforts to diversify itself significantly in recent times. Pollock said throughout much of its history, the Rotary Club was “more or less a gentleman’s club.”
“It was usually successful businesspeople that gathered. It’s evolved from that to include women,” he said.
“We have two new members, just joining recently, both younger women. It’s really nice to see that diversity coming in. We are a diverse club, and I think that goal has been achieved.”
The club’s youth are also very active and have remained so throughout the last year, doing things like:
- serving families with arts and crafts and positive messaging;
- sending cards to ICU staff;
- writing and sending cards to club members who may not have been able to get out and about; and
- sitting in on opportunities to learn and to grow as involved citizens of Centre Wellington.
Pollock said the club and some of its members have also recently been nominated for multiple awards.
“The club is proud to be recognized and nominated for the Community Social Responsibility Award of Excellence (from the Centre Wellington Chamber of Commerce),” Pollock said.
“Every Citizen of the Year nominee this year is a Rotarian from the club. Even one of the Youth Citizen nominations is an Interact member connected to the Fergus-Elora club.”
Pollock said even though the club is currently operating online (and hopes to return to in-person soon), it has continued its work and continues to look for new members who may want to get involved.
“Giving to others and putting service before self is the Rotary way,” he said.
‘Truly outstanding’
Groves Foundation executive director Lori Arsenault said the club was instrumental to the success of the New Groves Hospital Capital Campaign.
“The Fergus-Elora club members unanimously voted to increase their support of the new Groves hospital project to a total of $500,000,” she said.
“This is the largest gift ever received from a service club by Groves Hospital Foundation.”
Arsenault said the emergency department’s main lobby at Groves has been named in perpetuity in the club’s honour, in recognition of the transformational support they have provided.
“We truly appreciate everything that the Rotarians do for Groves hospitall their commitment is truly outstanding,” she added.
