Rotary Club giving Woodview a fresh coat and fresh start

Woodview Mental Health and Autism Services is in need of a fresh coat of paint. 

The centre has helped 100s of students since opening in 1960, but with that help has come years of wear and tear on the building. The Rotary Club of Burlington North is helping out, painting 13 rooms. 

“We’ve made some contributions to Woodview, but we wanted a hands-on project,” Clinton Howell, president of the Burlington North club said. “Turns out, there is a combination of classrooms and treatment rooms that need repainting as part of a renovation project.”

The Rotary Club, along with Burlington Helping Burlington, recently also raised $5,200 to help Woodview renovate their sensory room – which required a total of $22,000. 

On Feb. 10, the club is returning to Woodview to paint. 

“Our club tries to come up with an area of focus each year,” Howell says. “This year was very much about mental health and food insecurity. Our key fundraising goal was for Food for Kids, so we knew we had to come up with some mental health initiatives.”

So far, more than a dozen people have signed up to help paint the rooms. The Rotary Club is still looking for more volunteers as well, including high schoolers looking to get some volunteer hours. 

The Rotary club put emphasis on mental health due to the impact it can have in so many aspects in life and society – specifically homelessness. 

“We try to focus on homelessness, we supported the Gore Park project in Hamilton which feeds 800 people every Saturday morning,” Howell says. “Food insecurity, homelessness, mental health, it’s a shotgun approach to try to work with these things that are interrelated.”

The Rotary Club is a global network of more than one million members who volunteer in their communities. The first club was founded in Chicago in 1905. 

There are a total of 32,000 organizations around the world – unaffiliated with any political party or religion. The club exists purely to help people for the sake of helping. Burlington alone has four Rotary clubs, each with between 20 and 50 members who work and raise money for various initiatives.

“We have the Rotary Burlington North Foundation, a not-for-profit that redistributes funds back into the community,” Howell says. “We support women’s shelters, food banks, and school initiatives where kids can get involved with the Rotary club.”

The Burlington North club will be at Woodview on Feb 10 to paint the 13 rooms in a neutral grey tone. More hands are still needed to help as well. 

Anyone interested in helping paint can contact the Burlington North club.