For the past 50 years, the Rotary Club of Cambridge North has been serving the community to help make it a place residents can be proud to call home.
To celebrate those five decades of service, the club is hoping to gather current and past members to reflect on their achievements.
"We want to have a celebration in June," Dean Fitzgerald, current president of Cambridge North Rotary, said.
"I started to shake the bushes to find people last July and August but one of the challenges is past members are older folks and many aren't connected on the internet. I reached out to over 100 and got little response."
Being the current president, Fitzgerald has been on a mission to locate as many people as possible in any way he can.
But getting in contact with people isn't the only issue.
"With rotary in general, individuals are humble and want to do things in the background and not draw attention," he said.
"We have the conundrum of people who don’t want to self promote."
The search has had some success in the months since the initial outreach, as it began with finding six or seven members and now 25 are on board. However, he knows there are more he hasn't been able to reach.
Along with the celebration, Fitzgerald is working to promote the work of rotary.
And that work has deep roots.
"Back in the 1980s and 1990s, rotarians were meeting people and driving them to medical appointments before there was well organized community transportation," he said.
"It was nothing for them to be sitting in the office working and get a message from someone who needed a lift ot Hamilton or Toronto for a medical appointment. It went on for many years."
More recent examples include fundraising for the food bank, charity golf tournaments and donations to various community organizations like Langs, the Cambridge Symphony's youth orchestra and Fairview Senior's Community.
Just this month, a group collected 20 bags of garbage as part of the Cambridge Community Clean Up for Earth Day.
Despite it all, Fitzgerald finds there's a lack of understanding around the work the club does. It's something he's trying to change.
"I have neighbours that have no idea rotary is going on," he said.
"I feel like I’m a bit of an ambassador as president. There’s four rotary clubs in Cambridge and we want to use this celebration as a way to expose and educate people about what we do."
While he wants people to know the reasoning behind the club, Fitzgerald emphasizes it's not about getting recognition.
"We want to give back to the community," Fitzgerald said.
"It's rewarding to help people out."
To contact the Rotary Club of Cambridge North visit cambridgenorthrotary.org.
