For the eleventh year running, the Rotary Club of Edmonton joined fellow Rotarians from across our district and our partners in Belize to build a playground for children who would otherwise go without. This February's project carried added significance: it was the 50th playground built in Belize by Rotary District 5370, and it was dedicated to the memory of a Belizean friend whose service touched everyone who worked alongside him over the years.
The 2026 build took place at Our Lady of the Way Roman Catholic School in Ladyville, a community just north of Belize City, adjacent to the International Airport. Fourteen of us Rotarians plus family and friends made the trip down to spend their week assembling the playground on the school grounds. As always, the work was carried out under the guidance of a certified playground installer, with the bulk of the heavy lifting — and the laughs — shared among volunteers from Canada and Belize.
The model behind these builds is one the club is genuinely proud of. The playgrounds are not new equipment; they are pieces of Alberta's own civic infrastructure given a second life. When schools, municipalities, and parks departments across the province decommission playgrounds that are still structurally sound, the equipment is inspected, carefully disassembled, and packed into shipping containers bound for Belize. Sets that might otherwise have ended up in a landfill instead become the centrepiece of a schoolyard thousands of kilometres away. Eleven years in, the rhythm of the project is well-practiced, but the impact on the receiving community is never any less powerful — for many of the children at Our Lady of the Way, this is their first proper playground.
None of this happens without partners. On the ground in Belize, the Rotary Club of Belize once again served as the local coordinating club, handling logistics, transportation, meals, and the dozens of small arrangements that keep a build week running smoothly. Within District 5370, four Alberta clubs combined their financial contributions to make this year's project possible: the Rotary Club of Edmonton, the Rotary Club of Edmonton Mayfield, the Rotary Club of Fort McMurray Oil Sands, and the Rotary Club of Wainwright. And as in every year since the program began, the entire operation rests on a partnership with Mission to Children, the international arm of Edmonton's HOPE Mission. Mission to Children handles the collection and refurbishment of the playgrounds in Alberta, manages the shipping containers to Belize, and arranges the professional builder who oversees each installation. They are, quite simply, the reason these projects can happen at the scale they do.
This year's build was dedicated to the memory of Major Errol Robateau of the Belize Salvation Army, who passed away in November 2025 at the age of 80. Major Robateau served the Salvation Army across the Caribbean and Central America for more than four decades, twice serving as Regional Commander in Belize and authoring a history of the Salvation Army's seventy-five years of service in the country. Over the many years our club has been involved in Belize, members had come to know him personally — as a Rotarian, as a colleague in service, and as a friend. Dedicating the Ladyville playground in his memory felt like the right way to honour a man whose life was defined by service to children and families in need.
Fifty playgrounds. Eleven years for the Rotary Club of Edmonton. Thousands of children who now have somewhere to run, climb, and play before, during, and after school. It is a project that combines environmental sustainability, international service, hands-on volunteering, and lasting friendship across borders — everything Rotary is meant to be.
If you would like to learn more about the Rotary Club of Edmonton, our international service work, or how to get involved, we'd love to welcome you at one of our weekly lunch meetings at the Chateau Lacombe.
