For the 4^th year the members of the Interact Club at Charles P Allen High School are organising a Coffee House at Bedford United Church. This year’s event is being held on Wednesday April 10^th.

As well as a lively evening of fantastic music from a range of talented musicians, singers and bands, there will be a bake sale and of course coffee! In addition Believe in Hope Jewelry will be on sale, and tickets are being sold for a draw to win framed artwork. All of these components combine to make a successful fundraiser for The Alexis Fletcher IWK Adolescent Mental Health Memorial Endowment.

The Interact Club, and its sponsor, the Rotary Club of Sackville and Area and the Charles P Allen High school community have all supported the foundation since its inception in 2016. Remembering Alexis Fletcher, the foundation was started by her family to be “used for initiatives to increase awareness and education about mental illness in our adolescent population”. In addition it aims to “promote early recognition of symptoms and to teach importance of early treatment to improve outcome for mental illness. To educate students on where to go for help, how to access support and services”.

Interact is a youth programme of Rotary, where young people are able to support local and international communities, raising funds, awareness or providing practical support. The club is self governing with support and encouragement from both the school and Rotarians from the Sackville and Area club.

Its hoped that this will be the most successful event to date raising even more than last year’s total of $705.15

There are still some spots available for musicians /bands, please contact rotarysackville.38@gmail.com.

The event runs from 7pm to 9pm, tickets are $10 at the door and all proceeds go directly to the Foundation.

November was our big book giveaway!  For the fourth consecutive year we delivered dictionary / gazetteers to grade 3 students in our local Elementary schools and for the first time we joined up with Sackville Library to give away reading books to young people attending The Holly Jolly party before the Tree Lighting at Acadia Park. We are able to access reasonably priced, good quality books from The Dictionary Project and First Books Canada, and each book we give away has a plate label showing it was a gift from us...…

Sometimes even if you know the right thing to do, and do it, life doesn’t always work out if someone else does not make such good choices. Helping others make responsible choices was the message that was made by Mitch Dorge as he recounted the tragic stories of Jacqueline Saburido and Emily Watts. But this was no ordinary life skills lesson! The Crash Test Dummies Drummer, extrovert and eternal enthusiast told stories of his life, his music and engaged the whole grade 10 cohort at Chares P Allen cohort with 2 hours of high energy interaction......

Our latest Rotary Friendship Exchange was made up of seven Rotarians and spouses who represented Clubs in District 5020, namely: Bainbridge Island, Tacoma #8 and East Jefferson, WA and Campbell River, BC

They arrived in Nova Scotia on Sept 30th. and departed on Oct 15th.  Their tour started on the South Shore, Bridgewater/Lunenburg area, they continued on to Yarmouth followed by the Annapolis Valley.  Finally arriving in Halifax for the period of Oct 11 – 15th.

Throughout NS our guests visited local sites of interest, toured museums, ship building facilities, visited Camp Brigadoon, a vineyard and enjoyed the local cuisine in each area.  Our US & BC Rotarians also experienced a Canadian East Coast Thanksgiving.  Their stay was full of adventure and plenty of wonderful seafood!  They were impressed by the hospitality and generosity they had received while in Nova Scotia.

We are looking forward to sharing a similar experience with our friends from the West, when our District (7820) completes the Friendship Exchange in the spring of 2018.

The Rotary motto is “Service above Self” and so many people in the world inspire us by having the very same values. Today was no exception. Paul MacNeil continues to change lives by supporting adult literacy in our community and his clients can earn their GED and go on to make our community better, we were delighted to support his work at the BSLN again this year as part of our literacy programme. Then our speaker Lindell Smith told his own story of supporting his community  when he was a very young man, through music and art so young people in his neighbourhood  could find a brighter future. This selfless community service was recognised and he was persuaded that “politics”, done right, is helping and healing communities.  With this view he successfully ran for election and is the youngest councillor in HRM. He is helping to raise issues that have not previously been to the fore, but will have so much positive impact in our city. We are grateful for the impetus they both gave us.

In 1989 Rotary voted to admit women into what was an all male preserve. Clearly they could foresee that 28 years later our club would be hosting an event titled “Ladies after Dark”!. This event was a fundraiser for Literacy, one of Rotary’s six areas of focus.

The Ladies bought tickets and were entertained by a wonderful author Genevieve Graham, talking about breathing life back into Canadian History. The men served wine and hors d’oeuvres to keep the evening lively and also acted as designated drivers in a fleet of limousines!!

What a fun way to continue our support for elementary students and adult learners. Watch out for the date of the next event – coming Spring 2018.