Shelburne Rotary Club

Sharing Recipient Stories

2021 Dufferin County Community Grant Recipient
$3,000 | Cultural Enhancement

Food Insecurity is a growing issue at a local and national level. In Canada 1 in 8 households is food insecure, Rotary brings together a global network of volunteer leaders who dedicate their time and talent to tackle the world’s pressing humanitarian challenges. Their work impacts lives at both the local and international level.

In normal times, the Rotary Club of Shelburne presents a musical weekend in early August with 5 unique and diverse musical offerings to please all ages and musical preference. In early 2020 we postponed the festival to 2021 and now it would seem that we will have to cancel once again this year. Sitting shoulder to shoulder at a concert will just not be possible.

Rotary’s motto is “Service above Self” and this year in early June, we will be holding a COVID friendly Drive-inConcert at the Fiddle Park in Shelburne as a “service” to our community. The town, as so many over the past year, has suffered closed businesses and job losses and holding this event is hoped to be a bit of a respite for it’s residents and is an opportunity to gather safely in our cars with all the benefits of a live concert.
It is hoped that this event will attract a diverse crowd of all ages and ethnicities and will please music lovers of all tastes.

Music has always been a way of life for the residents of Shelburne. The year 2020 would have marked the 70th year of the Heritage Music Festival and Canadian Old Time Fiddle Contest. Over the past 4 years we have expanded our musical offerings to be more inclusive and to offer music that will please our rapidly growing community.

This event will benefit the Dufferin community by offering a version of Rotary’s annual musical event to preserve at bit of our heritage and to broaden our service to the community. The band and opening band will be such that it will appeal to a wide range of residents.

This past year has also been very difficult for the arts community and providing an event for local and professional bands to entertain will be beneficial to all participants. The event will benefit the audience and the musicians both economically and spiritually.

The direct impact of this funding will be to rent a stage, sound system, and lighting for a concert that will need to be seen and heard from the inside of patron’s vehicles.

Rotary has made a request to the Town of Shelburne to assist with the cost of this event.

The Rotary Club held a Wreath and Greenery sale prior to the Holiday Season to support this event.
Rotary also held a virtual festive party where we held a live auction of donated goods. The proceeds of the live auction will also support this event.

It was important to Rotary to provide something fun for our community all the while keeping our tradition of music that we have come to be known for over 84 year history. Our club has worked especially hard over the past year to make sure that we helped out in anyway that we could.
We purchased PPE for our local hospital, donated lunch to both of our long term care facilities, donated personal care items and toilet paper, held a food drive and donated money, all in support of our food bank

We also supported a new initiative that provided a back pack, lunch kit, water bottle and school supplies to 65 students in need, ranging in age from JK to grade 12. Rotary was also instrumental in the success of the Shelburne Hamper Program. This program assisted 147 familes who needed a helping hand over the Holiday by providing food, grocery gift cards and gifts for children under 18.

If our fundraising goals are exceeded we hope to decrease the cost of admission per car making it more accessible.
We have asked for our community to be generous so that we could help those in need and now it is time to give something back.