Community Projects and Charities

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Members of the Canton Rotary Club serve on three committees—Community Service, Vocational Service, and International Service—that are dedicated to helping causes nearby and around the world.  We like to participate by doing hands-on assistance with group work projects.  In recent years, we have done the following:

Club members doing roadside cleanup, May, 1996

• Our members have participated annually in the Adopt-a-Highway Program, with our commitment to roadside cleanup of a two-mile stretch of State Highway 310 just north of the village of Canton. 
• We also participate a couple of times each year as servers, kitchen aides and cleanup crew for Freewill Dinners at the Canton Methodist Church, where local people can have a good hot meal for a donation of whatever they can afford.. 
• Club members also recently spent two days repairing and painting service buildings at Taylor Park, the local summer recreation park.

Each year, the club undertakes several fundraising efforts to raise money that we contribute to needy causes in the Canton community and the North Country.  In recent years, the club has supported the following:

• 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

Dick Miller [l.], Gerry Lambert [3rd from l.], and Daphne Pickert [4th from l.] at newly-built lean-to at Dodge Pond, built by area Rotary clubs, summer 2006.

The Canton Rotary Club’s single largest regular commitment locally is to Dodge Pond, St. Lawrence NYSARC’s summer recreation camp in the Town of Fine that serves people with disabilities.  The Canton Rotary Club joins each year with Rotary Clubs from Ogdensburg, Potsdam, Massena and Gouverneur to contribute funds to make it possible for local children to participate in a week at the camp.  In addition, Rotarians regularly participate in work projects at the camp, such as building lean-tos for sleeping shelters for campers.