IN THIS BULLETIN...
At last Friday's meeting, December 6th, we heard from Jennifer Foster, the CEO of kidsAbility.
The meeting began with the national anthem. President Martin then made a toast to the Magic of Rotary.
President Martin highlighted this week's birthday's and rotary anniversaries. Helmuth Slisarenko has been a member of our club for 35 years! Thank you Helmuth for all your service, and for what you do for our club on a daily basis.
President Martin then presented Lawrie Jones with his 7th Paul Harris Fellow. Thank you Lawrie for your generosity, philanthropy, and guidance to our club.
Following this, President Martin opened the floor for Happy Bucks and announcements.
Matt Webster, on behalf of Nanita Mohan, highlighed the ongoing food drive. Next week is the last week! So if you have canned foods, hygiene products, and other useful goods, please bring them to the Christmas Luncheon.
Jules Croskill and Janette Hogan made an announcement for Sparkles in the Park. They are still looking for volunteers. If you haven't signed up for a shift, make sure to do so!
Marguerite Campbell provided an update on our Adopt-a-Family work. She explained how so many companies were willing to provide discounts to help support our work that we were able to sponsor an additional two families with six kids. Amazing work Liz and Marguerite!
Noma Vales made an announcement about our Christmas Luncheon. Our numbers are still low, so make sure to invite your friends and family!
Lawrie Jones gave a quick reminder about the Annual General Meeting.
Aidan Harris highlighted the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women. This day marks the day when 14 young women at Polytechinque Montreal were murdered. It is also a day to highlight ongoing gender violence against women and the need, as a society, to act and make lasting changes.
Terrie announced that for two weekends. 6th, 7th and 8th December and 13th, 14th, 15th December, downtown Guelph is hosting
SPIRIT OF THE SEASON for the second year. Enjoy a European-style Christmas market in St. George's Square, an indoor market inside Old Quebec Street Mall, and a window-decorating contest for downtown businesses. The chosen charity to benefit from this year's event is Keep Kids Fed At Home - the former Food4Kids Guelph.
After a nice pasta lunch, Terrie introduced our guests and gave an overview of our club's work with KidsAbility over the years.
Terrie began by thanking the club and our speakers for being here. She then moved into her overview of our work with the organization. "kids ability is yet another organization benefiting from the Magic of Rotary. Caring for the needs of children and youth is embedded in our clubs DNA. Ever since our club was chartered in 1920 and still today, 104 years later, a little history is worth sharing.
"By 1923 one of the club's top projects was cooperating with the Ontario society for Crippled Children. Rotary members and their wives, known as rotary aunts, at the time, helped with both fundraising and practical support assistance to families and children took many forms. Sometimes it was transportation to and from hospitals and clinics. Sometimes it was the purchase of special equipment, such as braces, shoes, glasses, wheelchairs, etc, all paid for out of Rotary's Crippled Children Funds.
"From 1940 the club even began helping local medical authorities to conduct surveys in Guelph Wellington to identify children with disabilities, so that no worthy case was overlooked. In later years, Rotary also made it possible for children to attend the summer camps of the Ontario society for Crippled Children in 1955 marking the 50th anniversary of Rotary International, the Rotary Club of Guelph officially opened the Rotary Children's Center in Guelph, which the club had built on beechwood Avenue.
"The Beechwood Center, as it became known, was a clinic serving local children who were physically and or mentally challenged in the early 1960s Betty Raffan, the wife of Rotary member, Dr Hamish Raffan, and the future mother in law of our retired Club member, Dr Ranjit Singh, saw a need in the community for respite care for the parents of severely disabled preschool children. Together with many dedicated volunteers, fellow mothers and Rotary aunts, she was able to develop programs to assist these children, many of whom flourished.
"The Rotary Club of Guelph was a huge champion of Betty's initiative and hard work, and in 1968 refurbished the facility on beechwood avenue to have a dedicated space to support the care of these children.
"Over time, the Ontario Ministry of Health and other agencies provided increased support for children with disabilities, eventually taking over from the Beechwood Center.
"You will hear today how our Rotary work in Guelph was mirrored by the Rotary Club of Kitchener, eventually leading to the formation of today's kids ability organization around about 1991 the work that had been done by the Rotary Club of Guelph was merged with the Kitchener facility, and that later became the kids ability organization To continue and expand services for children and youth through their specially trained staff in Guelph.
"The Beechwood Center was subsequently sold, and the proceeds supported many other rotary projects. Rotary still admires how the modern name kidsAbility focuses on children's potential rather than their disabilities. Ever since kids ability began, Rotary clubs in the region have continued to provide both encouragement and financial support, continuing many decades of Rotary's care and compassion for children and their families.
"Today, we are glad to welcome as our speaker, Jennifer Foster, the CEO of kids ability, who took on this role in January of 2024 bringing her exceptional qualifications and experience to lead the next phase of kids ability. Jennifer is joined today by Paige Phillips, our club's key contact at the kids ability Foundation."
Paige then took the floor and thanked Terrie for her introduction. She began by stating the vision of KidsAbility, which is "for all children, youth and families to realize their full potential."
When KidsAbility first opened its doors in 1957, with the support of Rotary, they were primarily focused on supporting children with physical disabilities.
Now, with the surging demand for services and the changing research and development, KidsAbility has grown to offer a wider range of programs to meet the needs of children.
This includes children with autism, developmental delays and rare syndromes now above and beyond just physical disabilities.
With physiotherapy, "a clinician may be helping a child to learn how to use a powered wheelchair or take their very first steps of independence. In therapeutic recreation, we help children to develop the skills they will need to participate in and enjoy recreational and leisure opportunities." A good example, Paige said, is a child being able to ride a bike for the first time with their family.
Augmentative communication can help a child who is non verbal communicate through visual cues, gestures or high tech devices to tell their parents that they love them. KidsAbility has heard from many parents in this program who have said that without ACS, they wouldn't have known their child's personality and got to know what they loved and what they need.
Paige then provided some breakdowns of the 2023-2024 year. KidsAbility served 17,000 children across their catchment area, and that resulted in more than 90,000 visits.
KidsAbility has grown to over 400, full-time and part-time.
Speaking specifically about Guelph, they served 3,200 children this year at their four locations in the Guelph-Wellington region. This amounted to approximately 26,000 visits.
In the last few years, KidsAbility has shared with the community their efforts to improve their quality of care, remove barriers for families and reduce wait times.
There are approximately 1,300 children on the wait list here in Guelph-Wellington. To reduce wait times, KidsAbility invested in the Rocket Discovery Center, which is a team of professionals dedicated to performing research and development and establishing partnerships with organizations, like the University of Guelph, to find solutions or apply solutions to mitigate age old problems within the field.
This led to the development of welcome groups. Welcome groups are informal play groups, where families are invited for their children to play and interact with one another and in the room.
In the room, there are an occupational therapists, physiotherapists, speech and language therapists and behavioral analysts, and as these professionals watch the children interact and they themselves interact with the children, they can better understand what that child will need when they come off the wait list and enter into the care of KidsAbility.
This makes the process much smoother for the child and family.
After discussing the welcom groups, Paige passed the mike over to Jennifer.
Jeniffer thanked Paige for her portion of the presentation. Jennifer then moved into a discussion of KindsAbility's strategic plan.
KidsAbility, "wanted to imagine, much like the Rotarians did in 1920, what might be possible for us to achieve, to be able to support our children, youth and families in the region of Guelph Wellington and Kitchener Waterloo."
As part of this process, KidsAbility reached out to 6,600 people across these regions and had over 1000 people respond to help them understand what was unique about kidsAbility. "What were some things that we were doing really well? What we weren't doing well?"
This led to the strategic plan. Jennifer explained that their, "new plan has innovation at the forefront of our vision and our rocket Discovery Center is going to help us achieve those goals."
KidsAbility hopes to create an, "innovative and inclusive network of care where every child, youth and family are able to thrive. And this network of care will transform the client experience from one that feels fragmented and overwhelming to one that is seamless, supportive and holistic."
Their new values include a culture of curiosity, a spirit of collaboration, a community of belonging, a commitment to integrity, and a foundation of excellence.
The strategic plan hasn't been released publicly yet, but Jennifer is eager for its implementation.
After Paige and Jennifer's presentations questions were asked by the club.
Lawrie then thanked both speakers for their presentation and incredible work. He presented them with our Speaker's Certificate.
President Martin ended the meeting as there was nothing more for the good of Rotary.
Notes taken by Otter.ai, edited by Aidan Harris.
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