The FOUR Rotary clubs in Oakville formed an alliance or cluster to address the COVID-19 pandemic. Credit goes to the Assistant Governor, Bent Fink-Jensen and Community Service Director of D7080, Norma Gamble for jumping into gear as soon as it was made public that we had a challenge ahead of us.
All four Presidents joined Norma and Bent on Zoom and decided to create a fund called the Oakville Rotary Relief Fund. Our focus was on Food security, Personal Protection Equipment (PPE), and Education. The four clubs invited the community to donate having their donations doubled. By the end of 2020, a generous and successful District Grant, allowed us to collect almost $50,000. Donations to deserving community organizations were made on a regular basis by the Community Service Chairs, supported by the dynamic PR and Communication cluster. Media coverage was great, and we were excited to be working across Rotary club lines. We even decided to form a Membership cluster, bringing the FOUR membership chairs from each club, to address the challenge faced by many Rotary clubs today. We all agree that the Rotary Cluster has power!
The result of this exercise is that all FOUR Rotary clubs in Oakville generated almost $50,000 to benefit the Oakville community during COVID-19, and have therefore decided to continue the dynamic cluster format, in the spirit of fellowship and cooperation.
Enormous thanks to Rod Craig, Khaldoon Kaylani, Michael Pavan, Mike Henry, Ahmed Ezzat, Ron Gall, Ken Auden, Susan Sheppard, Liz Behrens, Dana Dennaoui, Anum Nazir, Tareq Nasser, Catherine Whittaker, Riona Naidu, Leeanna Tieu, Jananeee Savuntharanathan and many more Rotarians and Rotaractors from the 'Fab Four!' - the four Oakville Rotary clubs.