President Gordon started the meeting with the reading of the Land Acknowledgement.
Anthem: Al Meredith
Toast to The King, Canada, and Rotary.
Attendance: 11 members and the guest speaker
Total attendance: 12
Program:
Lee Soda - Update from Agincourt Community Services Association
Arthur introduced Lee who is well known by our membership as a result of our close relationship over the years.
Lee first provided a little background on herself. Lee was a teacher but left the profession because she felt confined by the system. She felt that she would be able to contribute more to her community without this confinement. She joined Campaign 2000 which was formed in the 80's with the intent of eliminating child poverty. Her engagement in such networks led her to take a leading role in combating poverty in general and making a difference as Executive Director of the Agincourt Community Services Association (ACSA). The ACSA Mission Statement is to bring together people who need help and those who can provide it. They look after families, children, youths, the needy, the homeless, newcomers, and other vulnerable people. ACSA has just celebrated 50 years of service to the community.
Lee shared some startling statistics with us. Campaign 2000's recent report determined that 1.4 million children live in poverty in Canada, or 1 in 5 children. Child poverty is increasing in every province and territory in Canada. So, we are not heading in the right direction when it comes to helping those less fortunate than ourselves.
ACSA knows that hand outs would just be a band-aid solution, so they have worked tirelessly to instead give a hand up, assisting their clients to pull themselves out of poverty by providing services, or directing them to services, that can assist in this regard.
Poverty and homelessness are now moving into suburbs such as Scarborough, and Scarborough continues to be under-resourced to deal with these challenges.
Please click on the link for the full recording of this compelling presentation:
Frank Allison thanked Lee for her informative, but scary, presentation, and then Arthur presented Lee with a cheque to ACSA on behalf of the Club in the amount of $3,000.
Announcements:
Gerd presented the club with a cheque for $17,500 and requested that the board consider a large donation from these funds to ACSA.
- Barry announced that he is still collecting donations, payments and signatures for the Club’s Holiday card to members, but will have to finalize this process at the next meeting in order to send out the card to the membership before the holidays.
- President Gord presented Arthur’s committee with a District cheque of $665.00 for their Warm Hands project.
- President Gord announced that there will be no lunch meeting next week.
Sgt-at-Arms Danny Cassidy just collected Happy Bucks, including from:
- Alan Meredith for his new granddaughter
- Dhanni Ramdeen for the arrival of her granddaughter from across the pond tomorrow
- Gerd for his trip to Germany to see his 93-year-old Mom
- Avrum for his mother-in-law’s recovery from a health emergency
- Danny contributed a sad buck for the depressing reports from Lee about the state of our community
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