Bringing Smiles to Pikangikum First Nation

Laughter and smiles filled the women’s lodge in the remote fly-in community of Pikangikum First Nation as boxes of donated underwear were opened. Thanks to the generosity of My Top Drawer, more than 200 pairs of new underwear, along with nursing bras and baby support belts, were donated to the women’s lodge, the nursing station for expectant mothers, and the local school to support girls in need.

Rotary Club of Norfolk Sunrise members Jim and Marjorie Dawson delivered the donations during their annual visit to Pikangikum, where they continue their long-standing involvement with Project Journey. Working alongside community leaders, they help teach canoeing skills to Grade 5 and 6 students and support the high school outdoor education program.

This year, students who successfully completed their canoe training celebrated with a three-day wilderness canoe trip, enjoying the experience of camping, canoeing, and living off the land.

The visit also included a generous donation from Beach Reads, which provided young adult books for students to keep and enjoy. With no high school library in the community, the books were a treasured gift. Within minutes of receiving them, students were reading throughout the school, and several even brought their new books along on the canoe trip.

The Rotary Club of Norfolk Sunrise is grateful to My Top Drawer and Beach Reads for helping make a meaningful difference in the lives of the people of Pikangikum First Nation.

Following their recent weekend attendance at the D7090  Junior Rotary Youth Leadership Awards (Jnr RYLA), conducted at the Canterbury Hills facility near Ancaster, our three (out of a total group of 40) local students offered their own reflections on their personal experiences.
As introduced by Andrea Ongena, and in sequence, Harley DeKoning, Lola Pauls and Charli Goulet all expressed the very positive effect that the gathering had on them. Citing the ‘Action, Behaviour and Commitment’ themes, each provided a view about the personal changes they felt were resultant from the opportunity. All offered their appreciation to the two Rotary Clubs for making such a life-changing experience available to them. 
On behalf of the Simcoe Rotary Club Amber McKnight, and on behalf of the Rotary Club of Norfolk Sunrise Mary Mercato, each noted the delight we had in promoting this kind of leadership training and the pride we had in making it available to such good examples of our future community leadership. They then presented each student with an appropriate leadership Certificate of Recognition. Congratulations to all three!

Rotary Norfolk Sunrisers Jim & Marjorie Dawson have returned from Pikangikum FN from their recent trip to train Project Journey Students (Gr 5,6) and the High School Outdoor program students.  They certified 6 PJ students and 9 High School students with a level 2 canoeing certificate.  They had great canoeing weather with light winds and warm temperatures which allowed classes to be on the water every day of the week.  The students were well motivated and picked up the key canoe skills quickly leaving time for games such as dead fish tag, teach a duck to fly and race to recover 3 floats.  
More text & photos from their adventures are given at the ‘Read more …’ tab

As one of our objectives set out in our Action Plan for this year, we chose to promote Rotary Fellowship by visiting other Clubs in our area and seeking return visits from them … all in the name of better Rotary relations and increased Club awareness. As a result, and following our earlier visits to Dunville and Ancaster, a delegation from Ancaster took to the early-morning road and joined in with us at our morning meeting of 26 May. Following the necessary Rotary social time and introductions by Norfolk Sunrise Co-Pres Ross Gowan, Ancaster AM President Dwayne Kavanaugh gave us all an overview of their Club, highlighting some of the many similarities, and a few of the differences between our two morning Clubs. 
The Ancaster AM team stayed on to enjoy our Guest Speakers as well as to hear updates from our inbound exchange students - see separate stories.
This was Rotary at its best: learning about each other, improving our Club networking and enjoying Rotary fellowship. Paul Harris would have been proud.
Check out the 'Read more …" tab for several more photos and a copy of the story related to our visit to Ancaster.

Our Sunrise Trail. popular as it is with the locals, is in need of constant attention to keep it as appealing/useful as needed. In recent years, we have busied ourselves planting ornamental trees and daffodil beds along the Trail, all requiring annual upkeep. Spring is the perfect time to tend to our works. 
So it was that Steven Malo and his environmental group carried out the first of several maintenance days this year. Attending to the work, and as shown in the photo, were Dave Douglas, Cathy Harrop (cheerleading in the background). Randy Ongena, Steve Malo, Jim Dawson, Wolf Lindemann, Dave Bradshaw, Alan Plater and Paul Macko (John Wallace missing in action).
Lots of work, great cookies and much progress - next planned event on the Trail; Saturday morning, 02 May 2026.

Fellowship, food, fun, footwork and fundraising - who could ask for more!
On Valentines Day of the 2026 Family Day long-weekend, the RCNS organized and hosted our first-ever Music-Bingo, Dinner-Dance fundraiser at the Simcoe Legion.
With almost 100 Rotarians and guests in attendance, the RCNS filled the house and had a great time. As organized by our W&M leader Cathy Harrop, supported by music-bingo entrprenuer Hal Whitcomb (DJ Hal) & wife Debbie and catered by Bobbi Howe and her team, we all sang and danced ourselves into the night. Through the generosity of so many of our Club members, a huge array of donated prizes were available to win as a result of the bingo, even-steven, door and penny-table games and draws.
After it was all over, it was estimated that we had raised over $3500 to support our different Rotary support programs. So much work went into pulling off this very popular fundraiser. Helping Cathy to put it all together were Sunrisers Bettyann Carty, Sue Finney, Michelle Langedyk, Tina Millea, Linda Muir, Sarah Muntz-Flowerday and Louise Schebesch,    
A selection of photos are at the ‘Read more…’ tab and an even larger number are at the Club's Photo Album at this link.
As leader of the initiative, Cathy was thrilled with the results, noting that so many people encouraged a repeat event that she was already thinking of ways to do it better -  talk about ‘Service above Self’