The Wayne Community Association has set a target to raise enough funds by the end of 2018 to construct a new playground in the community. The Rotary Club of Drumheller is pleased to assist. Community Association president Fred Dayman,centre, accepts a cheque from Rotarians John Kohut and Linda Fisher.

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Drumheller Rotary President Ian Cassels presents a $5,000 cheque to Karen Hoover, Chair, Drumheller & Area Asset Development Coalition. It’s a first. Over 800 youth will attend Ignite Your Spark Youth Fair on Wednesday, September 27.

To help this become a success, Rotary covers all costs of this event designed to help a student find a new hobby or potential career.

The Badlands Community Facility will be filled with activities from art to music to science and sports and everything in between. Students in grades five to 12 in Carbon, Delia, Morrin, Drumheller and Wheatland Crossing will participate.

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Poland, the United States, and Ottawa got a taste of what it’s like to be a youth from Drumheller. All impressed their hosts during a series of Rotary Club-sponsored trips and spoke of their experiences Thursday evening at a club event.

Veronica Felisilda spent the past year living with families in Poland.

Jessica Francis was selected to attend the week-long Adventures in Citizenship in Ottawa which included a visit to the House of Commons and Jordan Armstrong was impressed with the international youth he met at the one-week World Affairs Conference in Whitewater, Wisconsin.

Drumheller Rotary Club prepares to say farewell to Polish exchange student Iga Rodziewicz (18).
After arriving back in August of last year, Rodziewicz hastravelled all over the western half of the world with an immense amount of knowledge to take back with her.
Come July 18, Iga will finally be making her way home back to the small city of Grudziadz, Poland.
“It was an amazing time for sure, I spent a lot of time with my host families, with exchange students, and people from school,” said Rodziewicz.
For the majority of her stay, Rodziewicz was taken under Rotarian Tracy Kakuk and her husband‘s wing. They have a family with young adults roughly the same age as her, making the stay much more enjoyable.
“She fit right in,” said Kakuk. “There was no problem right off the bat.”
Rodziewicztravelled all over North and South America including much of Canada like Quebec, Ontario, and British Columbia. She has alsotravelled down to California, Mexico, and Guantanamo aside from Alberta with multiple host families.
“There were lots of things to do all year,” said Rodziewicz. “All year was the best year of my life – I’m so appreciative of my parents, they gave me an opportunity to be here, to make new friends, to see all their country’s and I just want to thank everyone who took care of me, whoare taking care of me still.”
She was able to save up enough money to travel, none of which was paid for by family.
“When I decided to do it, it was a big process. I did all paperwork, Visa’s and stuff – it was so hard but when I came last year in August, it was unbelievable that I came here,” said Rodziewicz.
Before she has a chance to leave, the family will take her to the Passion Play and the Calgary Stampede.
Over the year, Rodziewicz’s English had also noticeably improved.
“She spoke good English when she came but it’s a lot better now,” said Kakuk. “We had a lot of fun correcting her.”
At first, Rodziewicz had applied for Calgary and was disappointed to find out she was placed in Drumheller.
“She was kinda quite upset when she wasn’t going to be in Calgary, she was going to be in Drumheller but after being here, she is glad that she got to come to Drumheller and not Calgary,” said Kakuk.
Overall, Rodziewicz has grown immensely since the beginning and will treasure the year forever.
“I think I am more mature and more outgoing and I haven’t got this barrier, it was hard for me, now it’s easy after all year,” said Rodziewicz.
“It’s going to be hard to say goodbye to everyone.”
The two families plan to meet with the Kakuk’s traveling to Poland in September.

For all his dedication in volunteering and assisting with the many Rotary Club projects, Ken Smith is the recipient of Rotary’s Distinguished Unsung Hero Award.

This is just the fifth time the award has been presented. Ken pitches in at all times to help the club raise money for community and area projects, from selling tickets, doing the heavy work and anything else asked of him. The Distinguished

Unsung Hero award is open to anyone, anywhere in the world. Its’ purpose is to recognize individuals who contribute so muchin volunteer work and who may not be publicly recognized. Rotary welcomes any submissions. These should be directed to Box 1331, T0J 0Y0.

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The Atlas Coal Mine National Historic Site received an upgrade on Holiday Monday, as members of the Drumheller Rotary Club came out to install new interpretive signs.

The existing signs that interpreted the Tipple Trail had become weathered and out of date. The Rotary Club along with Canadian Badlands were able to financially support replacing the 13 signs and the club had a work bee to install them.

“Our signs were out of date and really weathered, and these new panels will really last us, easily a decade,” said curator at the Atlas Jay Russell.

The signs are composed of the same material as the Valley Mine Driving Tour signs and Russell did the research to update the signs with relevant information.

“I really enjoyed doing the research in it and we found a lot more information about the Atlas when we were revamping the signs so it was a good opportunity to do that,” said Russell.

He says that phase 2 of the interpretation sign upgrade will be for the machinery yard.

“We have the signs now and we just have to do a little groundwork and we will erect those signs,” he said.

The project cost about $25,000 for the 13 signs on the Tipple Trail and another 12 in the machinery yard.

The Atlas is experiencing a great year, and in fact, the holiday weekend brought on one of its best days ever. This is the 80th anniversary of the Tipple and the 30th year for the operation of the historic site.