Sackville Rotary Club member Louise MacKinnon
A past president of the Sackville Rotary Club says that over the last decade, its weekly Gold Mine toonie draw has raised more than $1 million with half of that money going to winners and the other $500,000 awarded to a wide range of community projects.
“We started with just 500 players and now we have close to 3,000 registered members,” Louise MacKinnon told Tantramar Council during a five-minute presentation on Tuesday.
“Funds have been dispersed to our local schools, our hospital foundation, food banks, fire departments and other sporting and charitable organizations,” she said.
MacKinnon also listed numerous projects that the Sackville Rotary Club has supported including a $50,000 bridge linking Sackville’s Waterfowl Park with the 20-acre park extension donated by the late Daniel Lund.
“At Tantramar High, we give annual scholarships,” she said. “We provided laptops for the computing labs, funding for an environmental conference and food pantry donations.”
She mentioned that at Marshview Middle School, the Rotary Club purchased ukuleles and at Salem Elementary supported a program to feed hungry kids on weekends.
After listing dozens of contributions over the last 10 years, MacKinnon said these were just a fraction of the projects that the Rotary Club has supported with its Gold Mine lottery.
Club history
MacKinnon’s presentation came as the Sackville Rotary Club approaches the 94th anniversary of its founding in April 1931 by a group of 17 business and professional men.
Charlie Scobie outside Anderson Octagonal House in 2018
A history of the club, written by Charles Scobie, points out that most Rotary meetings feature a guest speaker and, in the early years, there were also occasional debates.
On April 17, 1933, for example, members debated the motion: Resolved that Music has been and will be of more benefit to the human race than Medicine.
“Of more than passing interest,” Scobie writes, “was a debate on 26 April 1939 on the topic, Should Canada have a national flag? Although Mount Allison faculty member Dr. George F.G. Stanley was a Rotarian at the time (he had joined the club in November 1937) the weekly newsletter does not record his participation in the debate.”
Scobie goes on mention Stanley’s role in designing the Canadian Maple Leaf flag that was adopted in 1965.
Lillas Fawcett Park
His history notes that in 1947, Rotary members began discussing the need for a recreational site where young people could swim, but it was not until the late 1970s, that the club bought a waterfront site on Silver Lake from Frank Fawcett for $10,000 (with the town contributing $2,000.)
Bert Reid donated two additional lots and after raising another $16,000 and soliciting federal grants, the club was able to create Lillas Fawcett Park as a children’s playground and a place for swimming, boating and picnicking. The park was completed in 1981.
In 1987, the Rotary Club constructed a shelter around the “Booster Pump” on Main St. and in 2017, it collaborated with the town in re-building the shelter and paving the adjacent parking area
Other projects that Rotary helped fund include the wooden shelter around the “Booster Pump” on Sackville’s Main Street; the “Rotary Bridge” spanning a stream that flows out of the Swan Pond on the Mt. A. campus; the Observation Tower in the Sackville Waterfowl Park and a fountain in the atrium of the Sackville Memorial Hospital.
At the conclusion of Louise MacKinnon’s presentation on Tuesday, Councillors Goguen, Tower and Martin thanked the Rotary Club for its work with the last word going to Councillor Allison Butcher:
“I just wanted to say that in our role here as elected officials who help to make decisions and move forward with the community, to have you come and remind us what a fabulous number of volunteers we have here and how incredibly fortunate we are to share this place together, I’d just like to say thanks.”
To read Charles Scobie’s History of the Rotary Club of Sackville, click here.
For information about the Gold Mine 50/50 lottery draw, click here.
To read a story about another of Charles Scobie’s books, People of the Tantramar, click here.
Bravo to the Sackville Rotarians! Thank you!
I have engaged with Rotarians locally and I’m absolutely baffled as to why they have never felt the urge to get involved with the new youth’s concrete skatepark project – its really surprising to me… I was asked to join the Rotary but have no interest at all.
Sally, many people support the skate park idea. The problem is nobody wants to work with you or be associated with you. YOU are the problem here.
Hey Bruno.. how about we meet up and you talk to me in person because I have no idea who you are and as you don’t use your last name I have no way to actually contact you and perhaps make a video of your “testimony” about me for anyone else who thinks perhaps you are on to something. I imagine you’re probably connected with all the right folks.
Skate park, skate park, skate park.
Okay… why are you so obsessed with the skate park? What have you done to try and get it going? Who have you approached? If it was denied a while ago, why not move on to another project?
Seriously, I’m curious to know why this is so important to you.
Elaine, my dear, wake up and I’ll explain the dream to you.
Sally, I was actually sincere and your patronizing didn’t help you any.
I am not “your dear” and you don’t know me well enough to call me that, so please, don’t do so again. Or any other little comments similar to it.
As for “Waking up”, again, patronizing not needed to a sincere set of questions.
Because you actually come across as… not exactly sincere or even willing to be at least considerate to honest discussion, I don’t need to hear your “Dream” at this point. I honestly could care less now. Which is too bad. If this is how you treat honest inquiry, no wonder you can’t do anything for your “dream”.
And Bruno is likely right, people WOULD support a skate park, it’s just your involvement in it that tatters the idea.