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Rotary Club’s Community Choice Grants are back

March 21, 2022   ·   0 Comments

By Sam Odrowski

The opportunity to vote for your favourite local non-profit organization is back.

The Rotary Club of Orangeville Highland’s launched voting for their annual Community Choice Grants program today, which is St. Patrick’s Day (March 17), and announced the 26 nominated charities, non-profits and social enterprises who are up to receive votes.

Through the program, Orangeville residents are encouraged to vote for their favourite organization, with the three most popular one’s receiving a no strings attached $1,000 grant. Two other organizations will be chosen by the Rotary Club with the view of helping smaller nonprofits that are less well-known.

The announcement of the 26 charities who people can vote for was made at the French Press Bistro in Orangeville on Tuesday (March 15).

“Co-owner Len Meyer, who is a member of the Rotary Grants Committee, posted shamrocks with each organization’s name on the wall of his restaurant to make it easy for customers to go online and vote,” said the Rotary Club in a recent press release.

The nominated organizations only had to fill out a simple application form and pass the eligibility review to be counted in the vote. To be eligible, they needed to serve Orangeville in some way.

The list of eligible non-profits has been posted on Rotary’s website at www.rcoh.ca. The public is invited to vote for up to three choices.

“It might be the easiest way that your favourite charity or nonprofit could get $1,000 this spring,” noted Michele Fisher, Rotary Club member. “Please share the link with your family, with your friends on social media. Rally people to your cause.”

Last year’s grants recipients were Streams Community Hub, Alzheimer Society of Dufferin County, Fiddlehead Care Farm, The Ontario SPCA Orangeville and District Animal Centre, and Active Lives After School (ALAS). 

“This is a unique way of giving out grants,” said Jeff Bathurst, Chair of the Rotary Grants Committee. “The community not only told us what non-profits we should consider, they will actually determine who gets three of the $1000 grants.”

The program was successful last year in popularity, getting around 2,500 votes.

“When it came to looking at whether we were going to do it again this year, there was no question,” said Fisher. “It’s just a wonderful way to get the community involved. The community has a lot of charities and nonprofits that they personally support and that they would like to see us support, and we’re happy to do that.”

The successful Rotary Community Choice Grants recipients will be announced by March 31. For more information, email grants@rcoh.ca.

“It really is incredible the number of organizations and people in this community that are doing good work,” Fisher smiled.

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