Health Centre
The Rotary Health Centre is an eco-friendly straw bale building (2021) that is primarily used during the Summer Camp season. It has a fully equipped clinic with first aid supplies, over-the-counter medications, as well as patient assessment tools (BP cuff, thermometer, stethoscopes, oxygen saturation probe, etc.). The Camp Nurse or Paramedic lives in the Health Centre throughout the summer. There are three wellness rooms for campers who need rest or a quiet space to decompress.
The Rotary Health Centre not only accommodates the health needs of our many guests and staff, but it shows how people and nature can occupy the same space so that both can thrive. As a “negative carbon building”, the materials used in its construction absorbed more carbon than the carbon emitted to build the centre. This supports our goal of becoming recognized as a national environmental education leadership centre, showcasing to the region, province, country and world what innovative green buildings can look like. To learn more about the unique sustainable features of the Rotary Health Centre click here.
Thank you to the many donors, foundations, Cathy Romano, the Morton family, and the Rotary Club of Peterborough for making the Health Centre Revitalization Project possible.
The Morton Healing Garden
Thanks to a very generous donation from the Morton Family, we have created a beautiful interactive garden in and around our Health Centre. The garden promotes nature connection, mindfulness, and well-being by encouraging children to engage with nature. The garden has a lovely water feature with small stream tumbling over rocks and whimsical benches carved from logs. Other features of the Morton Family Healing Garden include:
- A Zen Garden – providing opportunities for kids to express themselves through creative design.
- A Sensory Garden – by including plants with beautiful, smells, textures, and colour.
- A Critter Friendly Garden – with native shrubs such as Nannyberry, Serviceberry, Honeysuckle, Ninebark to attract birds. We have also installed bird houses, bee houses, bat, butterfly and toad houses, salamander boards, bird feeders and more, all the in hopes of attracting more wildlife.
- Pollinator Garden – to attract butterflies and moths – especially the endangered monarch butterfly.
- Gnome Homes and Fairy Gardens – To activate a child’s imagination, we have an area for children to create homes of Gnomes and Elves. Children use colourful shells, stones, boughs, and bark to create beautiful homes to attract the elusive fairies and gnomes living around Camp Kawartha.
The Morton’s dedicating the Garden