Waneta Sunshine Rotary

Before marriage, a man declares that he would lay down his life to serve you; after marriage, he won’t even lay down his newspaper to talk to you.

Helen Rowland

Life begins at 40 – so do fallen arches, rheumatism, faulty eyesight, and the tendency to tell a story to the same person, three or four times.
Helen Rowland

link to the Castlegar Rotary community bingo

The meeting was held on zoom with 5 members and guests Nancy Gurr and Tracey Fisher present.

Music: Iko Iko ; the dixie Cats

• Business
• Bingo – Maddy will donate a gift basket for new year’s eve bingo with items from Fruitvale businesses.
• Please send dues to Carol. Via etransfer to wanetatrailrotary@gmail.com. It is $120 for the next 6 months
• Program –
• Juris introduced Nancy and Tracy from Trail Association for Community living
• TACL is 70 years old this year. They run 5 group homes, community support and outreach serving 150 people, a child and youth program, a cold weather shelter and a thrift store to help fundraising. They help people get back to work. They received a new van with a $90,000 donation. They need several vans – last summer they had to rent one to run their summer program. they need a minivan for semi-independent people.
• They recertified this year with Carf for the next 3 years. they are still growing. In 2003 they had $1.3million in contracts and now have $6million. The biggest expense is wages with 130 staff, about 1/2 being full time.
• The homeless shelter recently expanded to 18 beds. There is no affordable housing locally. This leads to homelessness. Homeless people are grandmothers, local people from all walks of life, not all drug related. TACL works with BC housing. they have a long term plan to have apartments above the day centre. They have a woodwork shop which provides supported employment with a job coach. The vagrancy rate is higher now due to covid, the opiod crisis, lack of affordable housing. Education is needed in the community. The library is running a seminar today from 9 to 1.30 on zoom. They have security at the homeless shelter – 2 security and 2 outreach staff. People from out of the area are sometimes discharged from the hospital with nowhere to go and access the shelter.
• The child and youth centre is still running. We could possibly start volunteering there again. They currently give gift certificates to vulnerable youth for food.
• Fundraising has been a challenge for TACL during covid.
• They really need a new minivan for 7 people. volunteers are always welcome. Need a class 4 licence to drive a van.
• Juris thanked Nancy and Tracy.
• Discussion on whether we donate bingo money to help with their van. tabled until we know how much money we have.
• We need another vision session in the new year. maddy will look into it.
• The Rotary convention in 2022 will be in Houston. It will be the first in person convention in two years.
• December 17th will be the last meeting of the year.
• Happy and sad bucks (not) collected. Meeting adjourned at 8.15am