Kristan Verhaeghe
Regional Director – London spoke to us from https://www.start2finishonline.org/ . Their object is to break the cycle of poverty. They are a national not-for-profit organization. Their main program is the Running and Reading club. There are 70 clubs in Canada that operate from Thanksgiving to June each year, except that Covid-19 and the teachers strike has put a halt to their operations. There are eight clubs in London.  In St Thomas, John Wise Public School hosts their program. The teachers get involved and they really are excited about the program. Leaders involve parents by sending emails to them and keep them up to date. The kids ramp up to complete a five kilometre run as they participate in the training program. They are given shoes and a T-shirt.  225 kids finished last year and there were 3200 volunteer hours involved in the region. ‘Start 2 Finish’ uses a 12 step process to run the training program; starting with doing circles then a circuit, then sprints. The kids love to play the pizza game; if a child is tagged they become topping on a pizza according to the colour of their pinnie. After the exercise part they have a food snack. There is a literacy component in this program. For example, perseverance is used as a character trait to model and students are taught how to action perseverance in their life. They are encouraged to Journal how they feel. Students are given bins of books to look through and take. The object is to create a love of reading. If the child does not like reading that much, someone in leadership will read to them. Children are encouraged to shout words of encouragement to the coach. At the end of the year they go to a regional event where they run and read. The kids are given a survey both at the beginning of the year and again at the end. Results show an improvement of conduct, reduced hyperactivity problems, increased motivation, increased physical activity, and more confidence. They are more likely be involved in peer relationships. They have an increased self worth. Kristan told a story of Melody; she hated running but walked and cried when she walked; 30 weeks later she did a five kilometer run. There are other programs under Kristan’s regional directorship, such as, junior coaching leadership skills, scholarship program, the 20/20 program and the daily 20 program. Coaches use puppets to reach the inner voice of students and helped them understand themselves better. The sports connect Canada program by University grads for refugees. Kristan is looking for volunteers to help at John Wise public school; Nancy heard the call and wants to volunteer. It costs $12,500 a year to run each club. Funding comes from organizations like the Rotary Club, community corporations, Trillium grants and private donations. Many thanks to Kristen for explaining the good that ‘Start 2 Finish’ does in our community.  

 

Nancy's daughter is setting up programs in Toronto for 24-hour childcare accessibility for frontline workers. Gerry is donating to the food bank. Malcolm is celebrating his 82nd year birthday party coming up on Monday and he is involved with Rotary Canada. Barbara read a poem about smiling that she found in the Free Press. Trudy suggest that we respond individually to the passing of Doug Burnard.

Re Tour of Homes - Ron thinks we should rethink the Tour of Homes program or fundraiser and make less requirements for funding from corporate sponsors and find some other source of income and different fundraisers. Mary's daughter Michelle and her son are OK and continuing their recovery at home after testing positive for Covid-19. Trish reports that Ed and Kathy are OK at home and go to the back porch for some rejuvenation and replenishment. Bill encouraged them to get onto the Zoom meeting.

 

The next District Zoom meeting is April the 22nd with a speaker.  Anyone from our club can join. Gerry will send out the link info on email.

 

Stewart and Trish joined the ClubRunner international town Hall meeting; see the above picture from Zoom.com. This meeting had 2 groups of people, the first are the 10 presenters in the pic whos spoke, the second group were the attendees; they were never seen or heard but communicated by chat to the presenters. All could see the chat typing. We did not need to go to an International Rotary Convention to communicate with members from around the world. The best suggestion I heard was: start a community Zoom town hall meeting that involves any all organizations in the community. That would be bold! Our club is an example of the best that any club is offering! The consensus of the large group is that ClubRunner is the best platform for Rotary to operate under.

 

Please see a listing of all Rotary Districts in the world below. If you want to learn about any club, type “Rotary district <district number>” in a Google search.

 

Stew and Trish also participated with the St. Thomas Railway City Rotary Club meeting on Zoom with Karen Vecchio. They will be joining us next week with the Interactors in a Zoom meeting; please wait to receive President Gerry’s email with the link for joining by  Zoom. The meeting will take place at 5:30, when the original joint Interact-Rotaract meeting was scheduled.

The grant application for contribution to the St Thomas food bank is proceeding. The District does not want to see any grant refused that assists with Covid-19.