The Rotary Club of Whitby
Over 75 years of Service to our local and international communities
On May 2nd, 1933, many guests and prominent Whitby citizens attended the Charter Night of the Rotary Club of Whitby along with representatives from the sponsoring Oshawa, Bowmanville, and Toronto Clubs. This special gala occasion was held at the Ontario Ladies College (now known as Trafalgar Castle School). Seventy-five years later in 2008, club members met again at Trafalgar to celebrate its 75 years of service.
Today, members of the Rotary Club of Whitby still carry on the principles of Rotary as stated in Rotary’s 4-Way Test and the Object of Rotary. Whitby Rotarians enjoy fun and fellowship through planned social occasions and service projects for the local and international community and strive to practice the Rotary way in their businesses and vocational service.
The first meeting that led to this Charter Night of the Rotary Club of Whitby was held on February16th, 1933 at the Royal Hotel on Brock Street North in Whitby. In attendance to promote a Rotary Club for Whitby, were Dr. Grant Bird, President of the Oshawa Club, Mel Hutchinson, President of the Toronto Club and George Chase, Past President of the Bowmanville Club. In 1933, Rotary International required that a minimum of 15 members must indicate their intent to become charter members. So, on that February 16th, exactly 15 Whitby business and professional men signified their intention to do so.
| Arthur Allin | Drugs |
| George Astley | Accountant |
| Archie Archibald | Education – Secondary Schools |
| Blake Beaton | Dentist |
| Tom Best | Protestant Minister |
| Ed Bowman | Real Estate |
| Albert Browning | Law – Barrister |
| Charlie Carscallen | Education – Private Schools |
| Graydon Goodfellow | Printing |
| Doug Holiday | Hardware – Retail |
| John Kiernan | Hospital Accountant |
| Graham MacDougall | Medicine – General practice |
| Stan Montgomery | Medicine – Psychiatry |
| Jack Perry | Finance – Commercial Banking |
| Jack Roblin | Dairy |
| Don Ruddy | Law – Solicitor |
| George Stevenson | Hospital Superintendent |
| Don Wilson | Garage Services |
The first service project with which the Club assisted was the repair of the cinder tract at the Town Park on Brock Street South. It is worthy of note that some fort-five years or so later in 1979, the Club would once more undertake to improve that same park. By this time named Centennial Park, it was changed from basically a baseball park with two ball diamonds to a leisure park with walkways, benches, and a children’s play area with splash pad. A few years later, the Club provided a gazebo, where musical concerts are enjoyed during the summer months and wedding photos are often taken. Now, the park is known as Rotary Centennial Park.
The Aims and Objects Committee of the new Rotary Club met on July 7, 1933 and established a policy that "the work of looking after crippled children should have first call on the club’s time and finances". Over its 75 years, the Whitby Rotary Club has broadened this policy to include various types of projects for all children and youth. Still today, the Club supports the Easter Seal campaign to continue the work of helping children with disabilities.
Funding for the service projects undertaken by the Club over the years has come from various fundraising activities such as the annual well-attended Golf Tournament; pancake breakfasts; selling items such as flowers for Mother’s Day and Christmas, Easter hams, Christmas cakes, and Rotary calendars; a car rally; and car draws; a Rotoburger Trailer that travelled to fairs and other events to sell hamburgers; to name a few. Other service projects are known as "sweat equity" events as they use muscle power and time of the Rotarians to adopt a road for Earth Day; drive children with disabilities before Handi Transit was set up; build a deck and walkway at WindReach Farm, a place for people with disabilities to enjoy country life; grow corn and peas in the days when there was a canning factory in Whitby; and a Rotary Day of Giving where the Club partnered with Community Care to do spring clean-up jobs for seniors and the disabled, again to name a few.
The Classification System, where members from all sorts of professions, businesses and trades are sought out as Rotarians, enables the Club to ensure that it will have the appropriate expertise to accomplish all kinds of service projects. Indeed, the first fifteen Rotarians that formed the Rotary Club of Whitby came from almost fifteen different areas of expertise. A good start for a great Club!
For further information about the Rotary Club of Whitby, please explore this website. If you can’t find the answers to your questions there, please e-mail info@whitbyrotary.org.