Communication from your Board of Directors

To: Members of the Rotary Club of Collingwood – South Georgian Bay

From: The Board of Directors

The following is an overview as to thinking that went into the decision to have the Club commit to a 5 year, $25K commitment (with a caveat that in case of an emergency need in the community, that the Club can revisit this contribution each year) for the Hospice Georgian Triangle and Georgian College – South Georgian Bay.  

Hospice Georgian Triangle

The monies will be only used to help in building a Hospice Palliative Care Residential Home. Hospice has been to our Club with two presentations in the past two years. Please see the attached artist’s rendering of the building.

The building will provide a place, for those who cannot stay at home, other than the hospital, where persons approaching End of Life can spend their final days in Comfort with Compassion and Dignity.

The Club’s recognition of the South Georgian Bay’s aging population, the need for an alternative to an overcrowded hospital and short staffing of palliative care nurses, makes this bricks and mortar local effort a must.

Our Club’s contribution will allow the naming rights of one of the rooms i.e. family room or Garden, and this is dependent on the participation of the other three clubs in the area, Wasaga Beach has already verbally committed.

Georgian College South Georgian Bay

The funds are being used for the capital to fund the construction of a permanent campus in our area.  The College committed to our community with only partial funding from the Federal, Provincial and Municipal governments. No more funding is expected. 

Our area has one of the lowest post-secondary educations rates in the Province.  Families were becoming economic and geographic prisoners due to our lack of post-secondary education opportunities.  They did not have the funds to send their children away let alone themselves, to get advanced education or technical training to be able to compete for the jobs in the current environment.

Much of the Club’s local charity is work is the direct result of the under-education of the people in the area.  We have been to this point addressing symptoms rather than the fundamental problem.  The College will allow those who wish to the opportunity to lift themselves through education out of their circumstances.

The College has committed to help us with our efforts to start a Rotaract Club like the one in Orillia which is College based. Plus one of the key members of the Barrie Rotaract is Georgian College’s Marketing and Recruitment Specialist, who has also committed himself as a resource to make the Collingwood chapter a reality.

And as we get our Rotary Mentorship program up and running the College will work with our Mentorship Program Leaders to refer grads with special needs who can then become potential protégés for the Rotary Mentorship Program

The College is a natural continuation of our club’s educational commitments that began with Sandparents, Big Brothers Big Sisters, The Door and now the College. 

The Rotary Club of SGB will be given recognition of its support in the College’s main hall.

There is no question that these two organizations bring to the South Georgian Bay area a benefit that fully meets with the Objects of Rotary and it truly meets the fourth state of the Four Way Test regarding benefiting all concerned.