Upcoming meetings: see http://rotarystthomas.orgNext week – arrive early as it is a District Zoom meeting which starts promptly at 12:00 noon. “Not Your Grandfather’s Rotary” May 17 – Service Above Self Awards Jackpot Time – Bill and Maggie on May 10th Guests Lorna Fratco from London Hyde Park with Raffle tickets for annual fundraiser – Wine Pairing – raffle for wine pairing tapas dinner for 8 - $10 tickets and draw will be help Friday May 5th at event; Malcolm introduced two of our guests: Dan and Shirley Dale. They are friends of Malcolm’s. Dan is Hospital Foundation Chair. Scott Brush also joins us as a speaker from Indwell. Let Barbara know if participating in the hosting of delegation from Lithuania visit. RCRC is spearheading the hosting process in St Thomas. Club participation in the "Rock around the Clock" event in London raised over $1400 for our club. Barbara opened the meeting with the gong and asked all to sing O Canada. Toasts to King and Country, Rotary International and Gordon Lightfoot were given. Barbara added: “Go Leafs”. Also she quoted from Paul Harris and the 1914 Rotarian magazine regarding peace.
Scott Brush: Indwell (current housing) https://indwell.ca/housing-programs/ .Proposed Housing https://indwell.ca/projects/ Build stronger communities where each person can experience health, wellness and belonging. Scott is the “Launch Manager” and is a graduate of Heritage Bible College. Indwell is a Chrisitan charity that creates affordable housing communities that support people seeking health, wellness and belonging. The value the inherent dignity of all people. They seek to love our neighbourts as ourselves. Indwell seeks to consider everyone their neighbour. Hope is the foundation of all Indwell does. When people move in and have a safe place to call home, they do not have to be concerned with where they will sleep. Actively identify and remove barriers that prevent people from attaining safe housing. Indwell was started in mid-70’s in Hamilton with those who were leaving the provincial psychiatric system re-patriating people into the community. In addition to buildings in Hamilton, Indwell is also host to apartment buildings in Simcoe, Streetsville and Kitchener. Indwell involves housing but also builds supports around individuals and families which breaks the cycle of people being back out on the street and homeless. Food security is very important. For example, one bedroom apartment of $1300 rent is not affordable for those on Ontario Disability Support at $1200 per month. Indwell is both landlord and housing support. In St. Thomas homelessness has become much more visible. 2021 survey showed 116 people counted as homeless in a single day. Statistics do not answer the questions or provide solutions.
Partnership here with City of St. Thomas, the desire for the municipality to be part of the solution is profound. A true partnership with the city here. Transit building is: 15 units with intensive services so that those living there can continue to stay housed. Since the Transit housing was initiative, there has been an 80% reduction in occurrences in the downtown core.
Most of the people living on the street are not registered with a doctor or nurse practitioner.
The Station, soon to open, contains 45 units. There is an Enhanced Support program including food support. One of the long-term outcomes is sometimes relationship reconciliation with family. Third location is currently being discussed. Site is yet to be determined and would hope to contain 45-60 units. How can we help?
Pray for these programs
Volunteer when buildings open
Government grants are unlocked when community donates $ Event: “Opening Doors” May 18, 2023 5:00-7:00 p.m.
Register by May 12 at indwell.ca/events for $15 per person
Guided tours of the Station are available from 4:00 to 5:00 p.m. Question:
Are you involved with “Tiny Hope” – cheering them on
How are the contact made for who gets housing? Indwell works with municipality lists that are of those with high acuity and most at risk and need
Did the de-commissioning of Provincial Psychiatric Hospitals contribute to homelessness? Covid caused a perfect storm and then housing prices rose dramatically. People were also displaced by “reno-eviction”.
Do participants have the skills to take care of their apartment? Landlords have maintenance crews to respond to situations that may occur. Apartment checks are carried out for the safety and security of the building ie. Smoke detectors work, exit is not blocked.
Apartments are small and streamlined – about 400 sq. ft. Allows rent costs to be lower. That would be for one individual.
When more people are here in 3 years to run the VW plant will that automatically increase the number of homeless people? As the city grows in population, so will the number of those without housing.
Gerry thanked Scott for the inspiring talk but also for all the work being done here by Indwell. Gerry pointed out that the values of Indwell closely align with the focuses of Rotary. See Pic below:  Gerry explained about Paul Harris award. It(3rubies and +8) is given to Pat Martyn for her service to our club (see pic). See Pics from wet tree planting at Lake Margaret: Other news: Dear St. Thomas Rotary, On May 28th at the CASO Station in St. Thomas there will be a fundraiser to support the people of Ukraine. · The Elgin County Ukrainian Community is a volunteer group who provide newcomer support (assistance with housing, host families, employment, English as a second language, mentoring and emotional support). · Jack Groot, a local man, is returning to Ukraine in June, to deliver essential goods (medical supplies/equipment, food products and aid supplies) to the frontline and to teach critical casualty training. We are seeking your support. Would you be able to donate an item to the Silent Auction? Consider a donation to our fundraiser? We welcome everyone to attend this child friendly event as we celebrate our Ukrainian newcomers. All details available on March with Ukraine poster. Thank you for considering our request. Thank you -Slava Ukraini Rotary District Conference Flint Michigan Friday, June 23 – Sunday, June 25, 2023 Please join RI President Nominee Stephanie Urchick and PDG Tom Gump for our upcoming Noon Zoom for the topic of "Club Culture Transformation". When: May 17, 2023 12:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)
Topic: NOON ZOOM- Stephanie Urchick and Tom Gump From: Akhi Akter
Khulna, Bangladesh  Dear Members of the Rotary Club of St. Thomas, It is always my happiness to tell you about my life, community work, goodwill initiatives and the children who study in my micro-school. You know our micro-school is basically a home-based learning center for young children. In our slum 25 micro schools are operated for 125 children by the Amarok mothers. Actually, we are teaching neighbor children with our own children because their parents aren’t capable of teaching or appointing tutors for them. We are doing this to educate all children of our slum. You know that Bangladesh is an agricultural country and our livelihood depends on agriculture and our agriculture largely depends on rain. But city life and livelihood is quite different. People who live in the slums are extremely busy for livelihood purposes and the households live here on day basis income. Rainy season is especially when it rains for a few days, starts early in the morning and continues for the whole day. On such days, the day laborers and street shopkeepers do not find work. In monsoon, construction work and other works become slower. However, taking lessons from the covid food crisis, our teacher conducted a few sessions on “Importance of savings for the future crisis”. Good news is, nowadays many mothers of our school have started saving little money daily or weekly to face such challenges and crises. We help each other by taking & giving short-term loans informally, as we are friends but in our earlier days, we did not trust each other. So, there were no such transactions to overcome a certain need. There were moneylenders in our slum, some of them still exist, we used to go to them and often fell into their loan traps and got into loan-cycles. We are happy now that we have understood their trick, solved our problems by ourselves and can help each other in need. Although, all women do not study in our school and their families are now aware about it. Some families have many members to feed and could not save money. It becomes a big problem for them. We encourage the newly married women not to take many children beyond earning capability and to join with us in an income generating group to cover the risks. With her savings, our friend Kohinoor Begum has opened a tiny shop in front of her house in her veranda of her house and now becomes independent in earning. We support her initiatives and buy things from her shop. She also provides us goods in credit especially to the poor. The way we are taught in our mother-school, we follow the same method for teaching children in our micro-school. We teach them through stories, pictures, drawings, songs, and game activities. Amarok's teacher visits our house to see how we are doing and for our support. This is not always easy to maintain a fixed timetable in our busy livelihood. In such cases, we inform our children early about the changes. We do it because we
want to create an educated next generation in our slum. You will be happy to know 48
new books have arrived in our school for us and for our micro school children. We want
to see that our children will grow up with good education and manners. Actually, all our
support is free for the children. Before establishing Amarok School in our slum, the
scenario was different, the children used to move here & there, fighting with each other
and many children were engaged in child labor. The parents were not interested in their
education but now the situation has changed significantly. If you come to our slum you
can see in many houses in the morning or evening children are studying at their home.
Mother is sitting with her child or a group of children, which makes me happy and gives
us hope for a better future.
Thank you for your kind support to my education and our mother school
activities.
With love and respect,
Akhi Happy Finns
Gerry – Scott’s presentation, win 50/50, guests today, next vacation
Mark – Scott’s talk, wonderful initiatives in St. Thomas to try to get shelter for people, Pat for PH + 8
Barbara – Scott attending, Pat being present, wonderful morning at Lake Margaret planting trees, grand dog graduated from intermediate obedience school
Lorna – thanks for support of raffle, pleased to hear from Scott, has had connection with Julie from Indwell in London
Nancy – Scott and knowing the work Indwell is doing
Ron – for speaker’s presentation and actual work being done, Pat for her PH, Ron’s sister passed away recently and her received a frame poem written by his father for his grandparents
Cindy – Indwell and Scott speaking, for Pat and PH
Mary – for Pat, for the speaker, for her attendance today
Adriana – Andrew started at Dr. Oetker, to thank those who planted trees on Saturday, their anniversary in April
Pat – Scott and Indwell, Pat is happy to be here today, for receiving PH
Bill – Pat, Scott, daughter’s birthday
Maggie – Pat for all years of service to Rotary, Scott and Indwell – thanks for wonderful work, car broke down half way to wedding in US, near South Bend Indiana, got hold of dealership and given help happy finn for Dan and Shirley – very helpful years ago
Malcolm – Scott and his work, Pat, 40th wedding anniversary
Trish and Stew - Scott and Pat
PHF question for Board -
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