Tuesday, October 31 - It's always special to come home, and that was exactly how we felt making our official visit with the Rotary Club of Vancouver. This is District 5040's longest serving club, having been chartered in April 1913 as the second Rotary club in Canada (after Winnipeg). The club remains vibrant and very active, and involved in the local community as well as internationally.
We were greeted by President Phil Webber and the club board with a good review of where things stood and we gained a new appreciation for the work that this club does. The club has a major focus on hearing, and is responsible for the Rotary Hearing Centres at St. Paul's and UBC hospitals, funded by the Annual Bike Ride for Hearing (which is in its 33rd year). The club works hard to bring back the sounds of life.
This club also founded Rotary World Help which today is an active organization of more than 50 Rotary clubs coming together to ship containers of supplies all over the world.
But the club goes well beyond that into all aspects of the community, with activities such as the breakfast and reading program at Norquay School, Food on the Corner in the Downtown East Side, back to the club's earlier years with projects like International House at UBC and the first separated bikeway at English Bay. The club also has active International projects in Uganda, the Congo and in South America. In youth, the club provides youth scholarships and supports Rotaract Clubs at UBC and Vancouver Young Professionals. The meeting was a lot of fun, and we were honoured to induct Johnathon Strebly and Mark Busse, and present a Paul Harris to Jack Zaleski for all his work championing the bike-a-thon and the clubs focus on Hearing.
