Message from our November 22, 2012 Meeting

Posted 
on Nov 22, 2012
 
 Announcements:
  • Cecilia Luu visited us.  Cecilia recently joined the Etobicoke Club
  • Other visitors were Liz Kirk and Jamie from the CAMH Sunshine Garden.
  • The Rotary TV Auction is this weekend.  All available hands required on deck!!  Danielle will send out the volunteer list and encouraged us to visit the items list accessible through our own web site.
  • Marty indicated that we will need to drop the price on the Zeddys.  The reason for this is that the Zeddys are being sold at Zellers for $10 only. We will therefore change the sales strategy to ask for a donation in the $10-20 range rather than for $20.  The $5 tactic to other organisations remains unchanged.  47 cartons in Marty's garage need to go!

Guest Speaker:

  • Danielle introduced our speaker today - Liz Kirk from Foodshare/the Sunshine Garden at CAMH.
  • Liz began by thanking our club for our contributions to establishing the native plants component of the Sunshine Garden.
  • The vision of the Foodshare program is - and Liz's topic today was - "Good and Healthy Food for All". 
  • Liz herself is trained in Horticultural Therapy and introduced Jamie, a client at CAMH.  
  • Jamie spoke passionately about how working in the garden this past year has been so meaningful to him.  Working in the dirt was a totally new experience for Jamie and, an initially challenging one, in terms of being able to initially envision a "finished garden" while standing in the dirt in the Spring. But the green bits did come - "things started to happen" - and Jamie grew into the role to the point that he wanted any excuse to be spending time in the garden.  It was a wonderful aid for managing his own addiction.  Amusingly, he even became particularly fond of a certain red cabbage that he built into a display for visitors. He did not want to initially sell this cabbage for food as part of the Foodshare program.  He proudly showed off the garden to visitors.  The garden has truly been therapeutic for Jamie.  "There's nothing like the garden", said Jamie.
  • Liz then summarised the key role that the garden has played and again thanked us for our role in making the native section happen.
  • Robin thanked Liz with our customary mosquito net and thanked Jamie with a Zeddy!

Happy Bucks and 50/50 Draw:

  • Hugh put in a happy buck for getting accepted to go to Texas in April 2013 for further ShelterBox Disaster Response Team screening.
  • John H. won the draw but not the pot.