Cathy Henry on the History of the Hospice Project

Over five years ago, George Fitzpatrick came to me, as a past President of  May Court and suggested that the two clubs might unite  together for a joint project. The feeling was that there would be the power of numbers, reputations and contacts to make a project outstanding. When I asked him what he had in mind he said that May Court could decide.   After speaking to various May Courters who are very well connected throughout the area with service programs, I finally went to Betty Lou Souter and, after running through various programs that definitely needed assistance, we decided on Hospice. After presenting the idea to the May Court Board and the Rotary Club, I then went to Hospice Niagara and offered our assistance. The rest is history.

Laura Dominick was my co-convener that first year at Queen's Landing. Because it is her husband's photograph on the front cover and it reminded us of a winter's dream- of building a facility and being held during the fall, the name Winter Dreams was decided on. The original photograph was beautifully framed and auctioned off the night of the first gala- it was presented back to Hospice Niagara and will be hung in the new facility. As the popularity of this event grew, the committee decided that the name should remain constant to lend a sense of permanence to the evening.

Wendy Staff became my co-convener the second year- Wendy then became convener and I became  her co-convener for two years and now I'm back to being convener. As you can see from the meetings- this event almost runs itself.  The reputation of being the premier event of the Niagara area has made it easy to sell tickets and get local community minded companies to assist.  Everyone looks forward to this evening. Each club has lent its expertise to the committee- and we have worked well together for the past five years. If you check the list of committee names throughout these past five years- you will see that essentially, we have remained intact.

We all believe that this facility is of utmost importance to our community and must be seen through to completion. As we draw closer to the actual building of the facility- we all realize that there has been a tremendous amount of work to get to this point. However- it will all be worth it. Just like with the Children's Centre at Brock- the names of May Court and  Rotary South will forever be intertwined with the history of this facility- Hospice has constantly stated that without our support, they would not be anywhere near the completion of this building.