Rotarians first hatched the idea in the early 1960s to drive around the city selling cans of peanuts door-to-door as a club fundraiser. In the first few years, thanks to help from spouses and friends, the event raised about $3,000. However, the Nut Drive received a major boost when Rotarian and Queen’s Padre, Marsh Laverty, connected Rotary with the Queen’s Engineering Society. Engineering frosh were recruited during orientation week to “Go Nuts!” The students provided much n

The Rotary Club of Cataraqui-Kingston’s annual auction is one of the longest running Rotary fundraising events in Kingston. Since 1998, 23 auctions have generated $500,000. All funds raised go directly into projects to help the Kingston community and communities around the world. Before 1998, another local service club had hosted a TV fundraising auction for several years, but decided it was time to switch to other fundraisers. Our club stepped in to fill the void and the fir

In 2012, Blessings in a Backpack was established in Kingston to provide food assistance to families in need on the weekends. Children’s backpacks were filled with nutritious foods on Friday afternoons. Led by Kingston Coordinator, Paul Elsley, our president in our Centennial year, the program quickly became a favourite of Rotarian volunteers. The program changed its name in 2017 to Isthmus Kingston and, by that point, Rotarians were helping fund the program and were actively

Epidemics often find their sources in the contaminated water in hand-dug wells. These wells, typically up to 30 feet deep, may reach water but, at this depth, surface run-off causes contamination. For this reason, in the early 1980s, Rotary expanded its areas of service to include clean water projects in remote areas of Africa and Asia. An alternative to dug wells was drilled wells to reach subterranean rivers. Unfortunately, this required drilling into hard rock with a 4-inc