Annual Christmas Charity Auction & Social

The Auction that Helps Give Children a Christmas
Thank you to the supportive and generous sponsors and donors that contributed to the Annual Charity Auction and Social. The auction was a great success raising $75,000 for the CHML/Y108 Children's Fund – Christmas Tree of Hope.

Since 1988, the REALTORS® Association of Hamilton-Burlington has raised over half a million dollars for this great charity.

In the last 3 years ACISS Home & Commercial Inspection Consultants have raised over $6700 for needy Children.

Volunteer organizer pleased with Ribfest recycling efforts

Letters to the Editor
Sep 22, 2004

I would like to express my sincere thanks to all the volunteers who contributed their valuable time to make our recycling efforts at the Rotary Ribfest such a success.

Without the dedication of the 37 volunteers including local residents, students, All Canadian  Inspection & Safety Services personnel and Field and Stream Rescue Team members, our pilot recycling/composting effort at Ribfest would not have succeeded.

My thanks also to Tim Whitnell of the Burlington Post for informing the public about our recycling effort and for the great assistance this article provided us in recruiting volunteers.

Many may not be aware that this was the first time in the Burlington/Lakeshore Rotary Ribfest's history that an attempt was made to divert recyclables and compostable food waste from our local landfill. In years past, approximately 30 tonnes of vendor and patron waste ended up in the landfill. Thinking there must be a way to divert some of this waste, I met with Rotary's Paul Kadlick seeking to initiate a pilot recycling/composting program. Thanks to Paul's openness to my proposal and the enthusiasm of our volunteers, this became a reality. More than 300 volunteer hours resulted in more than 500 bags of steel cans, plastic and glass bottles, stacked beer cups, hand washed, stacked styrofoam rib containers, aluminum cans, organic food and paper waste, as well as flattened cardboard being diverted from our landfill. The weight amounted to just over five tonnes of waste diverted. Keeping in mind that this was accomplished solely by volunteers working with very primitive resources, I was extremely proud of their incredible achievement.

Our recycling efforts were well received by both vendors and patrons with comments to our volunteers being virtually all supportive and positive. In spite of the hectic pace, many vendors did their best to contribute to the recycling effort.
As all of the collected recyclables/organic food waste were hand sorted we quickly realized there were very few waste items generated at Ribfest which, given sufficient human resources, could not be recycled or composted. This gives us hope that in future years far greater percentages of Ribfest waste can and will be recycled /composted.

In addition, Rotary annually ensures that all gray water (leftover liquid) is pumped out and taken to the same filtration system as the sewage. They also have barrels of grease collected. In the near future, in time for next year's event, any collected grease will be recycled into biodiesel.

Thanks to Halton Region, the City of Burlington and the Oakville Waterfront Festival for their contributions of leaf bags, clear bags, extra blue barrels and gloves. I especially wish to thank the Rotary Club of Burlington/Lakeshore for their assistance and willingness to allow us to demonstrate that recycling/composting is a viable option for diverting waste from our landfill.

I hope that we can learn from and build upon our experiences to collectively develop a recycling/organics program at Ribfest as well as at other public events which will attain and exceed the province's mandated 60 per cent waste diversion rate objectives.

Barbara Frensch , Volunteer organizer