Continuing to serve

Rotary Clubs adapt to changing times

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has meant that practically nothing is “business as usual” anymore. At a time when community needs are as urgent as ever, service clubs have had to adapt in creative ways to continue with their mandate. In Wellington, the Rotary Club has only recently been able to hold in-person meetings. Their meetings were being held via Zoom, but with the easing of restrictions, their normal meeting venue, the Wellington Legion, was able to accommodate a limited number of club members, with the remainder participating online. Howard Ziedenberg, club president for 2020/2021, says the club has been coping well with the pandemic. “We are doing a great job of staying in contact with each other. If we haven’t had contact with a member for a period of time, they’ll get a call to see how they are doing, and to make sure everything is okay in their world,” he said. The Wellington club has been involved in a number of projects in the village. In June, the club did its annual beach cleanup, although it was reduced in scope compared to previous years, and did some repairs on the boardwalk. The bottle return depot is back in full operation. “We’ve been achieving personal records for the number of bottle returns coming in, and what we’ve been handling has just been awesome,” he said. The Wellington club is also building a memorial garden at the rest stop on the Millennium Trail in the village. The garden is intended to honour members of the club who have passed away. With public events still under restrictions, the club will be holding an online auction to raise funds for the Picton Hospital, and it will soon be starting sales of its Rotary Red wine, made by Domaine Darius. Last year, the Rotary White wine from Lacey Estates was a great success. The club is also planning to continue its “Diners and Duffers” book sale program.

Visitors look over some of the wines available in the silent auction at Uncork Canada in 2018. The Picton Rotary fundraising event for this year has been postponed to 2021.

The Rotary Club of Picton has also had to hold its weekly meetings on Zoom. They would normally meet at the Waring House for lunch on Tuesdays. Incoming president John Clarke hit upon a novel way to do some fundraising. He is asking members to donate the equivalent amount they would have spent on lunch. Rick Jones, past president and chair of public relations, said that much of their other fundraising is on hold, with one or two exceptions. “It’s a tough problem right now. We’ve had to cancel events—the Waterfall Tour in April, the Lilac Ride in May. And Uncork Canada was supposed to take place in June, but that’s been postponed to next year,” he said. “We just finished our Rotary golf tournament, which would normally happen in August, but we moved it up to this past Friday. We had a total of 56 golfers, with social distancing. We had raffles and silent auctions and probably raised close to $12,000.” The funds raised will go to local organizations, such as the Picton Hospital, Hospice Prince Edward and the Air Cadets. The club also received a grant of about $1,000 from Rotary International, which will be used to help the local community.

This year’s theme for Rotary International is “Rotary Opens Opportunities”, and both the Wellington an Picton clubs are doing just that. “Rotary keeps trying to serve the local community in every way possible,” said Jones. “This year it’s going to be a little more difficult to do with the COVID situation, but we’re trying our best to help most charities.”

While both clubs have a mandate to support their communities, they both appreciate the support that their communities give back, whether it’s in the form of donations or stepping up to help get projects done. “You ask any member and they’ll tell you that Wellington Rotary is the luckiest club because we live in the most supportive and generous community,” said Ziedenberg. “The people of Wellington are always there for us, and many in the community are wonderful volunteers. For example, with the bottle depot we were so overwhelmed with work, we have a number of friends of Rotary who are pitching in hugely to help us. We just can’t thank this community enough. They’re fantastic for us.”

For more information, please visit wellingtonrotary.ca, or pictonrotary.com.