The Rotary Club of 100 Mile House has been busy this past year supporting the community in numerous ways.
Rotary Club president Maureen Pinkney says the funds it raised supported local scholarships ($3,000), the South Cariboo Health Foundation ($2,500), Crime Stoppers ($1,000), EDUCO Outdoor Adventure School ($750) and the Youth Zone ($500).
The club also supports various other societies from year to year, she adds, and sends at least one local child to a Rotary Youth Camp each year.
"[The camp] is a great experience. It's a lot like the leadership building that they get at EDUCO, and in the past, we've certainly sent kids to EDUCO as well."
The annual Seniors Dinner the club hosted in December 2013 was, again, enormously successful with great entertainment and a dozen turkeys served with all the trimmings, Pinkney notes.
The dinner is organized by Rotary, but Pinkney says there are always numerous volunteers who significantly assist in pulling it off.
"It's a huge community event. It's not just the Rotary Club. It's all the guys who come and carve turkeys, it's everybody who helps serve, and Save-On-Foods cooked all the turkeys."
However, she explains attendance was slightly down because a sudden blast of winter.
"We were a little bit hampered with the cold weather, so we sold 350 tickets – which were actually all gone – but on the day of the event, just 295 people came."
While that was likely due to the last-minute cold snap, Pinkney asks any folks who do know ahead they won't make it, such as those given tickets they know they won't use, to please turn them in for the local seniors who don't get tickets at all.
"That's kind of a tough one; we were out of tickets two weeks before the event, so certainly it would be nice if people knew they weren't coming to bring tickets back."
The Third Annual Lobsterfest fundraiser in September was also very successful, with an almost-packed house and a lot of great items available for the live and silent auctions.
She adds the Rotary Club is extremely grateful for all the donations, and to everyone who bought a ticket.
This major fundraiser not only cooks up oodles of delicious lobsters for a major culinary delight, Pinkney notes, it also sees $40 from each $75 ticket benefit the community, as well as providing some annual financial support to Rotary International End Polio campaign.