Community Service Committee Mtg
Contact:
Jennifer Patelli
|
05 Nov. 2025 |
||
 Kingston-Frontenac
|
||
|
COMMUNITY SERVICES COMMITTEE MEETING
MINUTES – OCTOBER 1, 2025
Attendees: Jennifer Patelli, Trevor Dagilis, Russ Phin, Don Taylor, Don Polk
Regrets: Don Misener
Also joining the discussion towards the end of the meeting were Elaine Matthews and Arja.
1. Next year’s committee chair: While no one stepped up to chair the committee, all members present agreed to continue to be a part of the committee again. Jennifer has emailed Don Misener to ask if he would be interested in chairing. Mentoring would be provided.
2. Update on Martha’s Table: Don Polk reported that the 2ndstage of the renovation is complete. Their major fundraiser, “Empty Bowls”, will be held November 4th. They will be providing Thanksgiving dinner on Monday, Oct 13th. There was a great deal of discussion about whether or not our committee had promised to provide $7-10 thousand dollars to pay for new equipment. A review of the minutes showed that more research into Earle Allen trust as a potential source of funds was needed, but no firm decision was made. At the October 1st meeting, we agreed to provide Martha’s Table with $5,000 now, with the hopes of providing more funds in the future. Jennifer will prepare a cheque requisition.
3. Lionhearts: Trevor and Jennifer met with Leslie and Jeff from Lionhearts on Sept 18th to hear about their scope of service and vision for the future. Trevor summarized the information for us. As an organization which provides vulnerable sector support, the main focus is food security, but they also provide some transitional housing. There is a “Mobile Market” in 8 locations, where affordable produce (mostly locally grown) and soups and salad dressing (made in the kitchen at Ongwanada) is sold. Some of their goals include -
a. Make more ready-made meals from recovered restaurant food (similar to Meals on Wheels)
b. Expand the Student Food Box program to accommodate those on waiting list
c. Upgrade/expand market equipment (cost of $25K) – labels (brand, ingredients, nutritional information) to enable their products to be sold in stores to create income. While we cannot pay the full amount now, we agreed to provide $10K.
d. Trevor noted that they would be able/willing to store mobility equipment for us!!
4. Grant request from the Great Lakes Museum: Anita Mercier had completed a request for assistance in the funding of accessible doors to the museum. The committee decided that the museum is not a priority for our club and that our strategic focus should be mainly food security. Jennifer has informed Anita that the request was denied.
5. Cash calendars: Arja brought 30 to the meeting and distributed them all. We did not have time to discuss her (and John Mirski’s) suggestion that everyperson/organization that we support should be asked to purchase calendars to support Rotary in return.
6. Invitation from Kingston Rotary Club to potluck with visiting members of Denver’s Mile High Rotary Club. (Thursday Oct 2 at 5pm at the Sugar Shack)
7. Plans for accepting community project grant applications: As our committee’s budget is now drained ($10K to Lionhearts – see #3c; $5K to Martha’s Table – see #2), we will not accept grant applications at this time. Don Polk will remove the application from our home page/website.
Meeting adjourned at 6:15. The date for the next meeting was not discussed. I propose we meet on November 5th at 5:15, prior to the regular Rotary meeting.