About The Club
We are a FUNdraising club helping youth in our community.
Our motto is “Just for Kids” and our hope is to provide all members an opportunity to become leaders in the community through the youth projects of our service club. You can help by becoming a member or a sponsor in this worth-while community service club.
The Collingwood Optimist Club was formed in 1986 as the largest club ever inducted into Optimist International. The 72 members of this service club focused on “Helping Kids in our community and around the world”.
Since that time almost 250 members locally have raised money to deliver a wide range of programs for our youth.
The Club is extremely proud of its many achievements. One of our most recognized projects is the Collingwood Optimist Youth Bands. The Optimist Club raised funds and purchased ¼ of $1 million worth of Instruments and our incredibly talented young musicians have now earned a reputation of excellence.
The band frequently travels around the world (Tokyo, New York, Vancouver) and was featured on the Rick Mercer Report.
Another of our outstanding club achievements is the Collingwood soccer program. The Club started the program and within a matter of years it grew to 1,500 young people playing soccer on 19 fields which our Club built. As the kids grew into adults, they continued to play and become coaches and referees of the league which is now known as “Collingwood United Soccer”.
The Club also worked with the local OPP in bringing to the elementary schools the remarkably successful D.A.R.E. program (a drug awareness program), and an anti-bullying program that focuses on cybercrime.
These are just a few of the many programs our Club supports to assist youth in our community. As an organization we like to focus on FUNd raising programs that continue to support novel and creative activities for the youth in our community. Some of our FUNd raising activities include the Mother of All Yard Sales and Pond Hockey a youth fishing Derby and our annual Canada Day pancake breakfast.
Our motto is “Just for Kids” and our hope is to provide all members an opportunity to become leaders in the community through the youth projects of our service club. You can help by becoming a member or a sponsor in this worth-while community service club.
We have built or recently sponsored:
• Optimist Harbourview Park and Fisher Field
• New Collingwood Library “the Nook”
• Collingwood Hospital Foundation
• CCI Marching Band and a half million dollars in musical instruments
• Kids Fish Day
• Titan Rugby League
• Optimist Youth Soccer now Collingwood United Soccer
• The Collingwood Cheercore
• Collingwood Youth Tennis Club
• Collingwood Silver Stick Hockey Tournament
• Art by kids; GNE Music Competition
• High School Bursaries
• Collingwood Minor Hockey (boys) and Collingwood Lightning Hockey(girls)
• As well as numerous other benefical projects in the community….
WE would like you to join us as we continue to make Collinwood and area the best place to live. Please join us as we FUNd raise for our next project. Please contact Scott Thomson at 705 445 7559 or OptimistScott@gmail.com