Avenues of Service
Based on the Object of Rotary, the Avenues of Service are Rotary’s philosophical cornerstone and the foundation on which club activity is based:
Club Service focuses on strengthening fellowship and ensuring the effective functioning of the club.
Our Club hosts various occasions for social interaction among its members such as a Costume Hallowe’en Party in February to dispel the winter blahs, a trip to the special Rotary Day at the Shaw Festival, special 75th anniversary celebrations, and a Paul Harris Evening to recognize members who donate to the Rotary Foundation.
Vocational Service encourages Rotarians to serve others through their vocations and to practice high ethical standards.
Our Club supports such ventures as Junior Achievement programs, Durham Business Advisory Centre programs for youth establishing summer businesses, and high school Career Days.
Community Service covers the projects and activities the club undertakes to improve life in its community.
Our Club’s three largest community projects have been Rotary Centennial Park on Brock Street South, Whitby; an Environmental Park in partnership with the School Board and the Town of Whitby; and a $100,000 donation to the new Whitby Public Library. Our members have enjoyed providing smaller community service projects through pancake breakfasts for Whitby’s citizens over the years, planting trees for the Club’s 75th anniversary, adopting a road for the Earth Day clean-up program, and serving a Christmas lunch to people with mental challenges.
International Service encompasses actions taken to expand Rotary’s humanitarian reach around the globe and to promote world understanding and peace.
Rotary International’s largest international project has been PolioPlus where Rotary Clubs around the world have come together in many ways to eradicate polio from the face of the earth. The Rotary Club of Whitby is very proud of its financial contributions over the years to this cause as well as the participation of several of its members in leadership roles. The Club’s own international projects have involved such projects as organizing with other District clubs to provide leg braces to West African victims of polio, funding wells in Haiti and Uganda, supporting the provision of a centre to train people with disabilities in India, working with the Salvation Army Howard Hospital in Zimbabwe in its HIV/.AIDS program, and supporting an orphanage in Uganda.