The St. Albert Cosmopolitan Club was chartered on Nov. 05, 1983 when 20 community minded men got together to create a new service club in St. Albert. Celebrating this evening with us, were affiliate cosmopolitan members from 13 other clubs in Western Canada who came to share their wisdom and ideas to make our club successful and fun. It worked; because we are now recognized as one of the top clubs internationally, and we thank them.

As in every volunteer group, membership fluctuates each decade, mostly down. We are proud to say we continue to maintain and are currently 30 strong. We meet once a month for 10 months and fundraise all year. We raise money through our annual golf tournament, spring fling dance, rock n’ august beer gardens, grey cup raffle, casino and others. We take time to socialize as a group and play games which include; Texas holdem, crokinole, darts, pool, bowling, curling, golf and a new one, lawn bowling. We enjoy mixers with our spouses with dinner and an evening at Christmas time and the race track in summer.

Our main theme is “the club that fights diabetes” and our cosmopolitan clubs have been recognized by diabetes research for our donations in excess of $1 million dollars. During our 30 plus years, our club and membership has donated to over 100 causes from as large as diabetes research to a personal computer for a blind young man, and the building of a wheelchair ramp for a handicapped lady. Annually we support SAIF (Stop Abuse in Families), the St. Albert Seniors Association, Sidekicks, St. Albert Legion, Kids with Cancer,  St. Albert High School Scholarships, St. Albert football, ringette and fastball, the music society, an Ethiopia expedition, the seniors club and Special Olympics.

If you are interested to learn more about this club and you want to give back to your community as well as meet new friends, we would like to invite you to a meeting. Inside this website you will easily find our contact information. Give us a try, you may like it.

Cosmopolitan Foundation of Canada

The American aviation industry had Howard Hughes. The Cosmopolitan Foundation of Canada, Inc. had Fred Hughes.

Fred was, and still is, a great supporter of Cosmopolitan International and its charitable arm, the Cosmopolitan Diabetes Foundation, whose mandate is to fund diabetes related education and research. This Cosmopolitan Diabetes Foundation, which is primarily supported by individual Cosmopolitan from the USA, Canada and Mexico, was headquartered in the USA, and for this reason it was Fred’s view that there would be more support from Canadians for this worthy cause if there were a Canadian arm. Secondly, the original Foundation could not issue Canadian Tax deductible receipts and, being the good businessman Fred was, he surmised that this was a restriction in raising public funds for this project from Canadians.

So the mission began to register a Canadian Charitable Foundation. If you have ever had anything to do with the government of Canada and the Charities Directorate of the Canadian Revenue Agency, you have an idea of what Fred was up against. He wrote letters, filled out forms, made telephone calls and got so frustrated he was about to give up when he lamented to a fellow Cosmopolitan, Barry Collins from Saskatoon, about the difficulties he was encountering.

It so happens that Barry was not only a lawyer, but he was also with the Department of Justice. Barry knew how the system worked, he knew who to contact, and had the ear of some pretty influential people in Ottawa. Barry reworked the application, prepared the appropriate By-Laws and with signers Rnold Smith, Aubrey Reimer, and Barry Collins, the charter for the Cosmopolitan Foundation of Canada, Inc., was granted as a registered Charity on July 1, 1984.

Fred Hughes was the very first contributor, with Ned Dudley, who later became President of Cosmopolitan International, the second, and Bill Pollon the third. This Canadian Foundation has now raised and spent in excess of $1,000,000 on diabetes related research and projects.

Decisions relating to the Cosmopolitan Foundation Canada, Inc. are made by a Board of Directors.