Palgrave Rotary Club hosts annual fundraising gala

November 14, 2019 · 0 Comments

Written By ALYSSA PARKHILL

Rotary is a global community dedicated to building better and healthier communities.

On Nov 9, the Palgrave Rotary Club hosted a gala at the Royal Ambassador Banquet Hall to raise funds for local drives, youth and international programs.

“It was a successful evening as far as we’re concerned. The event is a fundraiser for our rotary funds that drives all our local and international programs,” says Ian Kittle, President of the Rotary Club. “The rotary is good people working hard, volunteering and creating that money that we spread as far as we can with the projects that we support.”

He added, “They treated us very well and are very accommodating especially to charities; it was a good overall service. It’s good to have a local banquet hall that appreciates the local charities. Putting on a big event is a lot of help and they were very helpful,” commented Kittle.

The event presented a live auction with a local auctioneer who did the bidding on four large items. These included a painting done by a professional artist who happened to be one of the rotary club member’s sister, private use of the rotary chuckwagon including the wagon and the staff along with it, a two-hour flight simulator experience at Pearson Airport where you get to play pilot and fly and land in any airport in the world, and last was. a $500 watch donated by a local jeweller.

A silent auction was also hosted with 70 different items.

“We had 70 items for bids and are pleased to say that every item that was bid on was bought by somebody. That’s pure fundraising profits for us,” says Kittle.

The Gala is the Rotary Club’s second largest fundraiser. Last year they raised around $17,000 in funds, and members are hopeful to reach around the same number this year.

“Our main fundraiser, which yields about $40,000 is our Wines of the World fundraiser,” explains Kittle. “

“We’re looking forward to making that our number one event next year, but this one is equally as important, because combined together they give us next year’s fundraising budget for our three directives; international, community and youth.

He added: “Being a Rotarian is, you know, in the end you sort of got the power to decide on the projects that your club has, equally with the other members.”

Music was performed acoustic guitarist Andrew Hunt, and then the Michael Vera band for the dancing portion of the evening.

For more information about upcoming events and the Rotary Club please visit my.rotary.org.