Rotary Club of Big Canoe Community Projects

We deliver food items our members have donated at various meetings. The program prepares over 670 bags of food for the students who qualify for this project. It currently costs $1,800 a week. How do I get involved? You can bring items to the meeting or drop them off at the Wellness Center. We will soon have at least one more donation site within Big Canoe.

Big Canoe Rotarians volunteer with the local non-profit Sleep in Heavenly Peace (SHP). This organization builds beds for children who have no bed or sleep with multiple siblings in the same bed, parents, sofa, or even on floors. All children deserve to sleep in a bed and get a good night's sleep for growing and learning. 

The non-profit organization operates in Lumpkin, Dawson, and upper Forsyth counties. Their motto: " No Kid Sleeps on the Floor in Our Town."

Thanks to a collaborative effort among several community organizations, Home Medical Equipment (HME) will be available to those in need in North Georgia. Friends of Disabled Adults and Children (FODAC), a statewide non-profit organization in Tucker, provides medical equipment and services to adults and children with disabilities. Executive director Chris Brand, along with President Fran Farias, of Big Canoe Rotary and Dawson County Rotary have organized and set up The North Georgia Mountains Home Medical Equipment Collection Center. The dedication date is set for April 18 at 4pm at the Good Shepherd Parking lot. 

Big Canoe Rotary project chair, Dawn Clay, and Dawson County Rotary Club project chair, Patty Kurz, are organizing the project. 

Our club supports Pickens County Ferst Readers. The program delivers a book a month to children in Pickens County under the age of 5. Since 2009, the organization has delivered 160,784 books to Pickens County children. Books for the program are selected by a children’s literacy group. Ferst Readers is available in nine states. The Rotary Club of Big Canoe is pleased to support the program which is a 4 star organization on Charity Navigator.

The road to eradicating polio has been a long and difficult one, with Rotary leading the fight since 1985. Going from nearly 350,000 cases in 1988 to just 10 so far this year has required time, money, dedication, and innovation from thousands of people who are working to end the disease.

Rotary Clubs of Big Canoe and Jasper commemorate World Polio Day with a fundraiser at The Lodge at the Mill October 25th.  Great food, fellowship and lots of fun!

The Rotary Club of Big Canoe continues to recognize an international organization Alliance for International Reforestation in Guatemala. Our club donation to Executive Director Anne Hallam supports the organization’s efforts to provide seedlings, replant thousands of acres from clear cutting, build local economies, and provide a better nutrition source to local families.