How The Bayfield Optimist Club supports Seeds
One of Seeds’ biggest supporters is The Bayfield Optimist Club, a wonderful organization that has been helping youth in the Bayfield and surrounding area since 1984. The Optimist Club has been involved with Seeds since its inception, assisting with funds that are mainly allocated to insurance. This is essential for us, because it allows us to charge our students significantly less in terms of fees. At the beginning of the pandemic, The Optimist Club helped Seeds by paying for printing, to ensure our students had printed materials. These are just a couple of ways that this amazing organization has assisted us and contributed to our success.
Going forward, the Seeds blog will be featuring several local brands and businesses, as well as people in the community. We are excited to begin that part of our blogging journey by chatting with Mike Dixon, a longtime director and member of the Bayfield Optimist Club, and a very good friend to Seeds. Read on for a Q & A session with one of our very favourite supporters.
Q: What do you love about working with the Optimist Club?
A: Our mandate is “friend of youth”, and everything I’ve done for the last 35 years now by way of charities has been for youth. I was a Big Brother, I’ve been involved in several organizations for youth, but I hang my hat mainly with the Optimist Club. The club fills all my requirements for helping youth because that’s what it’s all about.
Q: Speaking of that, can you talk a bit about what the Bayfield Optimist Club does?
A: We raise money and we build things like splash pads, playgrounds, skate parks, and many other things within the community. When a youth’s parents can’t afford to put them into baseball, football, hockey, Brownies, Girl Guides, etc., we step in . When parents don’t have the money to facilitate things like that, we help facilitate it. If it comes to our attention, we anonymously donate the money for the membership and buy the equipment if needed. Anything we can do to help the youth of our community, we do.
Q: Why do you feel Seeds Rooted in Youth is important and worthy of all the assistance The Optimist Club has offered?
A: What Janneke is doing is, to me, the perfect investment of our funds. She gives back to the community so much, so we support her by giving back to her and what she does. Our relationship with Janneke began approximately three years ago when Seeds started on a very small scale. Janneke began telling me about her ideas. I was immediately interested, so I told her to come and see me if she needed some financial assistance, and that I would bring it to the club. It works very well for us, because we are both so focused on helping youth.
Q: Are you kept aware of what is happening with Seeds?
A: Yes! Every Fall, Janekke comes to the club with a video presentation to show us what she’s doing with the kids. She works really hard on that and we always look forward to it.
Q: Have you witnessed the impact that Seeds has had on the children?
A: I know from hearing stories, seeing the videos and the pictures, that the children can’t get enough of this type of learning, and they can’t get enough of Janneke.
Q: If you could make anything happen for Seeds, what would it be?
A: I’m actually trying and hoping to get 20 acres of land donated to Seeds. Janneke wants to do this right, she wants to do everything - farming, living outside in the bush, learning and teaching children all the ways of the outdoors. And she deserves to do that without borders, so we are trying to find a way to make that happen.
Q: We are so thankful for all of your help and your commitment to the cause. Anything you’d like to say in closing?
A: Anything at all that we can do to help, Janneke knows that all she has to do is call me and I’ll bring it to the club. I am so dedicated to Seeds, and so are the rest of the members.
We would like to acknowledge our gratitude for The Bayfield Optimist Club and Mike Dixon. They are both truly essential pillars of our community. Stay tuned to the blog for more features on local people, businesses and organizations!