Together. It’s a word that sums up what the Rossland Rotary Club does.
The club is 19 adults of various ages, backgrounds and work experience who rely on one another to successfully do a wide range of things, from organizing a dance fundraiser event to building things or selling raffle tickets. They are creative and enjoy doing it all with others who feel it’s important to give back to our local and global community.
It’s challenging to list everything that the club does — this article is intended to give a better idea about some of the lesser-known but nonetheless important local contributions.
Rossland Rotary supports many programs that benefit youth. A good example is the $5,500 donated to the Youth Action Network this past year for furnishings, and individual Rotarians helped in the construction of the new space. This past year the club was able to make the final $5,000 payment on a $20,000 commitment to the Rossland Skatepark. These two organizations are naturals for Rossland Rotary Club support, and they just happen to be in the same physical space and therefore a logical choice to plant trees this year.
But it isn’t always all about the money, and the club supports other organizations in other ways.
Some members enjoy building things
The Rossland Museum asked Rotary to build a bench of old, long skis for their visitors to use while watching the ski movies in the ski wing. The museum provided a photograph of what they wanted built and Rotarian Michael Robbins organized the effort, collected the skis, and built this very special bench that now sits in the ski wing of the Rossland Museum. The prototype bench sits outside the front door of the museum.
Every year, Rotary does a spring clean-up of the exterior space at the Rossland Museum, and they’ve done some specific outdoor project work for the museum, too. They assisted Waneta Trail Sunrise Rotary Club with their annual highway cleanup this past spring.
In September, 138 cyclists will take part in the WaCanId (Washington, Canada, Idaho) bicycle tour that stops in Rossland for one night of the 370-mile International Selkirk Loop ride. Rotary will welcome riders and organizers at the Paterson border, provide snacks, a ride up the hill to town if needed, with similar support the next day up Strawberry Pass on their way to Castlegar. Rotary coordinates with Tourism Rossland and others to make this group’s visit to Rossland an interesting part of their tour. This ride benefits the eight Rotary Clubs who participate.
Rossland Rotary Club’s projects are what they choose as a group to support, within general Rotary International and club guidelines. If you have an idea to discuss with Rotary or if you might like to be a member, you can find contacts and learn more at rosslandrotary.org.
The club meets Monday evenings at the Rock Cut Pub.
