Canton NY Rotary - Club History

“With large delegations from ten sister clubs present, and a total of nearly two hundred seated at the banquet tables in the Hotel Harrington last evening, the Canton Rotary Club, No. 2515, received its charter from Rotary International amid one of the most enthusiastic and impressive ceremonies ever witnessed here. Clubs represented to welcome the new club were: Carthage, Watertown, Clayton, Ogdensburg, Malone, Chateaugay, Tupper Lake, Kemptville and Hull, Canada and the sponsoring club, Potsdam. Wives of members were present as guests. Representatives of the Canton Lions were also guests.”

This was the way that the St. Lawrence Plaindealer reported the very first meeting of the Canton Rotary Club on Dec. 14, 1937.

The Charter Members were: Earl MacFadden, President; Clarence Armstrong, Vice President; Gerald Fitzgerald, Secretary; Horace Hale, Treasurer; and George Feld, Sergeant at Arms. Others were: Rene Dompnier, Carl Hosmer, Russell Lawrence. William Mead, Lawrence Pasel, William Patten, Bert Rogers, Bright Sage, Ben Saidel, Dan Spencer, Dr. John Stauffer, and Charles Tait.

Over the years many changes have taken place in the details of the operation of the club, while the main focus of community service has remained essentially the same.

We met weekly at Billy’s Restaurant till the early 1940s, when we moved our meeting place to the Hotel Harrington. Some time about 1953, we moved to the Tick-Tock, then to the Treadway Inn (later called the University Inn) about 1972, with a short stint at the St. Lawrence Inn.

The membership numbers rose quickly to about forty-five, which it has been since, with a spurt of growth in 1971 to seventy-nine members that lasted for a while. The dues have increased from the single digits to $120 per year, while meals started at $.75 to the present $7.00.

Formal rules and regulations were more strictly adhered to in the early days, while in recent times in-house governing has been much more relaxed. During the first twenty-five years, business meetings were often combined with a social evening in members’ homes, leading to closer connections between members than may be achieved today.

In 1988, Cathie O’Horo was inducted into the club as its first female member, starting a new era. Today there are twelve active women members, about one-third of the total membership.

The Canton club has sponsored many community projects over the years, particularly relating to youth. We sponsored a Boy Scout troop starting in 1946 with continued support for the Scouts to the present. In the 1950s we joined with the Lions to help set up Taylor Recreation Park for the use of all town and village residents, building the bathhouse and helping pay for improvements to the swimming area. In 2006 we helped repaint those buildings. In the fifties we were very active in sponsoring the Fresh Air Children Program and, from 1938 through 1960, we provided financial help to provide dental care to local school children who couldn’t afford it. We were an early sponsor of the Canton Pee-Wee Athletic Program, which continues today. In 1975, the Canton Rotary Club, with the leadership of Professor of Government Robert Wells, was instrumental in initiating the Rotary Critical Issues Conference at St. Lawrence University, which allowed high school students from the Rotary district to meet for discussion and resolution of public policy issues of importance of the day. This was continued successfully for twenty-five years; over 750 students from New York and Canada participated over that time. In the spring of 1983, the Easter Seals horse riding program for handicapped children was initiated and was sponsored and assisted by Rotarians for many years.

In the early 1960s, we continued support for community hospitals by paying for a four bed ward in the newly-constructed E. J. Noble Hospital in Canton. In the sixties and early seventies, we started hands-on work to clean up the islands in the Grasse River. Although that effort stalled for a while, it was picked up again in 1998 by Grasse River Heritage, a local volunteer group which is encouraging the economic and aesthetic revitalization of Canton’s waterfront. This project has received much financial support from Rotary and several members serve on its board. In 1995, significant support was given to the Downtown Revitalization Project to improve signage and general appearance of the downtown area. In 1963, we bought 300 iris bulbs to plant around the village and, in 1965, we planted trees in the park in the center of town to replace old elm trees that were dying. In the 1990s, sugar maple trees were planted around town to replace trees that had been taken down after several powerful wind storms.

In the last ten years, the Canton club has participated in both the Adopt-a-Highway program, with members periodically doing roadside cleanup on a stretch of State Highway 310 north of the village, and serving Freewill Dinners at the Canton Methodist Church a couple of times each year.

With clubs from Ogdensburg, Gouverneur, Potsdam, and Massena, our club has regularly supported a week-long summer camp program for local children with disabilities at Dodge Pond, which is owned and operated by St. Lawrence NYSARC. In addition, members of the club frequently work on projects at the camp, such as building lean-to shelters for children to sleep outdoors.

Some of other local projects and organizations that have been supported in recent years with funds from the Canton Rotary Club include:

Annual Scholarships to Canton High School seniors for higher education

Annual “Service Above Self” Scholarships to Canton High School seniors

Vocational awards to students in instructional technology courses

Canton Youth Center

Canton Recreation Pavilion

St. Lawrence Valley Renewal House

Canton Free Library

Canton Potsdam Hospital

St. Lawrence County Historical Association

Hospice & Palliative Care of the St. Lawrence Valley

Racquette Valley Habitat for Humanity

4-H Camp Overlook

Grasse River Heritage

Canton Holiday of Lights

Frederic Remington Arts Festival

Big Brothers Big Sisters

And more

Over the years many different fundraisers to pay for these projects were tried. Early ones included a card party and fashion show, an auction was held for several years selling donated items, Rotary-Lions hockey games, plays, and selling roses for Valentines Day. In the fall of 1965, the club organized a public spaghetti dinner and, in 1974, a pancake breakfast, both of which remain successful fund raisers and good social gatherings for members working together for the community. A third significant source of annual funds the club raises in the community is Rotary Radio Days, when members sell advertising from local businesses to be broadcast on a local radio station.

The club also remains loyal to and supportive of Rotary International, which is known throughout the world for its significant humanitarian efforts on behalf of people in great need. In 1956 the club decided to collect money each week from members in the form of “fines” [We call them “happy and sad dollars”.], dedicated to the Rotary Foundation. The Foundation is an endowment that funds the important international projects of Rotary around the world. One of the programs run by the Foundation is Polio Plus, a project to immunize for and eradicate polio all over the world. An appeal went out in 1987, with clubs receiving a quota to collect. Canton’s quota was $8900 and $12,184 was given from thirty-five donors. We were one of the few clubs in the district to exceed their quota. We give scholarships to students for studying in a foreign country and host exchange programs for both groups and individuals, all to encourage international peace and understanding. Group Study Exchanges have brought teams to visit the Canton club from places as diverse as Argentina and Egypt.

Among the national and international humanitarian projects that the Canton club has supported in recent years are:

Canton-to-Greenville AL Hurricane Katrina Relief Fund

Shelter Box USA

Sri Lanka Tsunami Relief Fund

San Salvador Hurricane Relief Fund

Wheelchair Foundation

To recognize support of the Rotary Foundation, the Paul Harris Award—established to honor the name and the contributions of Rotary International’s founder--is given to someone who has donated or who has had donated in his or her name, $1,000. Canton Rotary has been recognizing people who exemplify the motto “service above self” by giving $1,000 to the foundation in their name. The first such award was made to Lorence Pries in 1975. Since then, forty-three Paul Harris Awards have been given through the Canton Rotary Club.

Since Rotary International is organized throughout the world by districts, the Canton club belongs to District 7040 which is made of clubs from western Quebec, eastern Ontario and northern New York. Club members participate in district conferences and assemblies, having an opportunity to meet fellow Rotarians with a shared interest in the values and services of Rotary. The Canton club is proud to have had two District Governors in the past, Loryne Connick in 1981-1982 and Daniel O’Connor in 1986-1987.

The year 2007 is our seventieth year in Canton. We are proud of our history of “service above self” to our community and the world beyond and are looking forward to many more years of good fellowship and good work.

Tom Lee writes: Having been a member of the Canton Rotary Club for longer than all but three or four others, I’ve been asked to write a brief history of the club. To research the information, I’ve studied board meeting minutes (1944-present),the Bumblebee (weekly newsletter),news articles (Plaindealer and Commercial Advertiser) and I interviewed some senior members (past and present). Whereas my story may not be entirely accurate, it is based on these references and the best I can produce.