The Rotary Club of St. Albert is celebrating its 35th birthday this month with a $100,000 gift to the community.
The club is celebrating its 35th anniversary this March 21. The birthday comes nearly a month after the 120th anniversary of Rotary International, which was established on Feb. 23, 1905. Rotary is an international service club whose members aim to address pressing public problems, such as fighting disease and providing clean water.
The St. Albert club wants to mark its 35th with an extra-big community project, said club president Darija Slokar. The club has put out a request for proposals for a project that would improve the quality of life in the St. Albert region. The ideal project would align with the Rotary values of service, fellowship, diversity, integrity, and leadership, and preferably have something to do with the club’s focus areas of peace-building, disease prevention, water, health, education, economic development, or the environment.
“We want something that would be visible in the in the community,” Slokar said, and not a one-off project or event.
Slokar said the club planned to accept proposals until April 15, and have the groups behind the best two ideas pitch their projects to the club this May. By mid-June, the group planned to pick a winning project to receive $100,000.
Questions on the requests for proposal should go to Slokar at president@rotaryclubofstalbert.
35 years of service
The Rotary Club of St. Albert got its start sometime in 1988, documents posted to the club’s website suggest. Brian Thompson, then president of the Rotary Club of West Edmonton, had made it his goal to start a Rotary branch in St. Albert, and teamed up with district governor Al Williams and special representative Jim Crookes to make it happen. Crookes was all set to put out a call for members in the St. Albert Gazette when he died in February 1989. This first attempt at creating a club died with him.
Later in 1989, Thompson was approached by Sturgeon County resident Duane Gibb about creating a St. Albert Rotary club another shot. Thompson, Gibb, Jim Galpin, Jim Trann, Larry Johnson (then superintendent of the St. Albert Protestant school board), and Doug Wilkes formed organizing committee that September. Handwritten notes suggest that “Sunrise Club” and “Rotary Club of St. Albert Sturgeon” were both considered as potential names for the group.
The group settled on the name “Rotary Club of St. Albert” by the time it sent in its formal application for membership on Nov. 17, 1989, club records show. The club had 21 initial members, including Gibb as secretary, Johnson as president, and Kent Davidson (now Chief Justice of the Alberta Court of King’s Bench) as a director. The club was officially established on March 21, 1990.
The club was a bit sillier in those early days, with lots of sing-a-longs and other goofy games during meetings, said charter member Charles Schroder. Today, the club was “like a large family,” with members supporting each other with flowers and food when they are sick.
The Rotary Club of St. Albert has completed about 90 community and international projects as of this year, including the construction the Ducks Unlimited viewing area on the north side of Big Lake and the train station by this city’s grain elevators. (Rotary Park was built by the Saint City Rotary Club with grants from the Rotary Club of St. Albert.) It also runs major community events such as the St. Albert Rotary Music Festival and RibFest.
The club’s Charter Night celebration is March 21 from 6 to 11 p.m. at the Sturgeon Golf and Country Club. Tickets are $75. Visit stalbertrotaryclub.com for details.
