A century of service for community welfare RC Sault Ste Mari in Ontario, Canada, will be hosting a gala event with a grand food menu to mark its 100 years of service in which over 200 members and the public are expected to attend.
Membership with Rotary Club of Sault Ste Marie (Ontario, Canada – D 6290) offers Diane Marshall a chance to help others in different countries and lend a hand right here at home.
The club celebrates its 100th anniversary with a gala Tuesday at Marconi Club.
An estimated 180 to 200 are expected to attend. The menu includes butternut squash risotto, stuffed shrimp and beef tenderloin.
Guest speaker is Jennifer Jones of Rotary International.
Marshall, a retired Algoma District School Board administrator, joined Rotary in 1990, three years after the service organisation started to admit women.
Marshall was familiar with the group’s work.
Her uncle, Ray Mills, was a member and served a term as president.
“I always really appreciated the work that Rotary has done forever,” said Marshall.
She’d help during Community Day, the forerunner to what’s now Rotaryfest in mid-July.
Marshall, who also served as president, attended a Rotary immunisation programme in India, saw a water project in Honduras and participated in a group study in Norway since 2000.
Rotary, she says, “has offered me some great international projects.”
There’ll be champagne at Tuesday’s celebration “to toast our club and its work,” said Marshall. She is the event convener.
The club is adding 75 trees in the city’s west end as part of Rotary International’s The Seed is Planted’s project to plant 1.2 million trees worldwide for each member of the service organisation.
Co-chair Rodger Rosset called the club’s platinum jubilee coinciding with the larger drive as “just great timing.” Sault Rotary has about 75 active members.
The Sault club met with the city to choose areas where planting the trees “would improve the area and to have good visibility,” said Rosset in a recent interview.
The Sault trees will be planted on John Rowswell Hub Trail, Carmen’s Way and Albert Street West near the new bridge plaza.
Planting began in late October.
TD Friends of the Environment earmarked $6,000 for the project.
More than 10 different types of trees, including trembling aspen, sugar maple, red pine and spring snow crabapple will be planted.
“For impact it’s a variety of species,” said Margaret Hazelton, supervisor of recreation with City of Sault Ste. Marie.
“It’s going to have a visual impact and impact for the senses.”
Robert Haig was a member of the tree planting committee. The retired Great Lakes Forestry Centre administrator died in early October. Haig was 92.
“He was very pro-environment and trying to keep Sault Ste. Marie beautiful,” said Rosset.
“He was a wonderful man. You would have loved him. He was a Paul Dalseg type of guy.”
Dalseg, who owned Canadian Tire’s Sault location, died in April at age 93.
“These guys are humble, gentle, generous people,” said Rosset.
The club also distributed $100,000 to community groups, including Thrive Child Development Centre, and residents to mark its centenary.
Searchmont No Limits Adaptive Ski Association received $2,500.
More than $32,000 was distributed to families with children with physical disabilities for needs such as a hospital bed or stroller to “make life easier for everybody attending to his child,” said Marshall.
Part of Shore Drive near Bellevue Park will be renamed Rotary Parkway on Tuesday morning.
The service club had donated more than $300,000 to the municipal playground including an adventure playground.
Marshall hints at another community project, but Sault residents will have to wait until 2019 to learn more.
“It’s in the works and it’s going to be very exciting,” she said.
Rotary Club of Sault Ste Marie meets each Tuesday at Marconi Club.
An Interact Club is active at Superior Heights Collegiate and Vocational School. Rotaract is for young professionals aged 20 to 30.
Source: The Sault Star
