Norfolk Sunrise: Moments of Giving 

October is Community Economic Development month and Rotary is fully engaged. In our case, the Rotary Club of Norfolk Sunrise (RCNS) recognizes the huge development benefit our migrant farmer community provides and asked the question - can we take a “Moment of Giving” and turn it into many positive outcomes for our community? This happened for our RCNS this past summer.

In June 2025, the RCNS was informed that new refugees had arrived in Norfolk County and that they needed clothes and household items. This call to action for our Club resulted in a chance meeting with Leanne Arnal Bennett, Director of Norfolk Community in Action Inc & Norfolk Expansion Lead CCSYR. We learned that CCSYR’s mandate is to help newcomers, temporary foreign workers, and immigrants living in our rural community transition to rural life in Canada as smoothly as possible.

Go to the ‘Read more …’ tab to find out how we responded to this opportunity and to learn about other related details. This was a great development experience for all concerned … the RCNS certainly plans to continue such “Moments of Giving” in support of our local migrant farm workers in the years to come … all celebrating Rotary’s motto of “Service Above Self.”

Leanne was in charge of the donations for the new families. It turned out that Leanne was also organizing an inaugural soccer day in July for the local farm workers.

Norfolk County farms employ about 7,000 workers and out of those, there are approximately 5,000 agricultural migrant workers from Mexico, the Caribbean, and Central America. The work is very labour‑intensive and done outdoors. The work is seasonal for most and many return year after year. They are away from their families for 6-8 months during the agricultural season.

The soccer day took place on July 6 and was a resounding success. The highlight game, and first of its kind in Canada was the farm workers all-star team against the local Ontario Provincial Police team.

Our RCNS supported the event by sponsoring the team shirts for both the farm workers and the Ontario Provincial Police. It was a great day for all!

The “Giving Moments" continued while at the soccer day when we met Maureen Acuna Harrison, IAW Health Promoter and Translator for the Grand River Community Health Centre. Maureen’s team provides health services to our local farm Workers.

Maureen organizes a separate annual soccer day in August for the farm workers. We discussed Maureen’s wants for this upcoming day. Again, the RCNS listened and we donated the championship trophy. Another wonderful day for all the participants and community!