Spring Lake Rotary Scribes Report: Friday, September 28, 2018
Rotary Interact Club Meeting at Spring Lake High School
Spring Lake High School Principal Mike Gilchrist and the Spring Lake Interact Club hosted Rotarians, and a group of guests for our off-site meeting at the high school. This was a chance for Rotarians to meet and talk with the Interact students, as well as those individuals, groups and sponsors that assisted with the recent Bayou Battle fundraising event. Devin Pierson from Helen DeVos Children’s Hospital Foundation attended the meeting to accept the “big check” from the Bayou Battle proceeds, which totaled $8,145. Devin spoke briefly about the Gridiron Giving program, and some of the ways that these funds would be used to help children in West Michigan at HDCH. All parties in attendance that participated directly with the event took a group photo with Devin accepting the check from our President, Dave Stocking. Dave asked me to list everyone who helped with the Bayou Battle event, so I’ll do my best here:
- Rotarians who assisted on this event include but are not limited to: Ed Grafton, who launched the fundraiser 7 years ago and donated legal services and a book to the Interact Tailgate; Tracy Straight, who showed me the ropes on this event, ran the car-smashing setup for the Interact Tailgate, and raised $186 through a jean’s day campaign at his bank; John Nash, who represented Rotary at the Bayou Battle game and did fundraising with me there; Stefanie Herder, who helped to publicize and market the fundraising efforts through the Spring Lake Rotary Club website, Facebook and Instagram accounts; Kevin Green, who generously donated to the Tailgate silent auction a foursome of golf with Principal Mike Gilchrist at the SLCC; Phil King, who donated two $50 gift cards to local merchants for the Tailgate silent auction/raffle; Barry Kram, Sue Zwart, Cara Galbavi, and George Gardner for their cash donations to the event on 8/24; and Lisa Ashcraft, who assisted greatly with helping me to round up funds for this event, verifying deposit totals for me, and cutting checks back to the HDCHF for the event.
- The Spring Lake Interact Club, led by teachers Jen Gutierrez and Emily Nieboer. Students took the reins on this and really amped up their effort for the Bayou Battle. They decided to hold the first-ever Community Tailgate event for this game, which they scheduled for the night before the game in the SLHS parking lot. This was a massive success, adding a total of $3,285 to the funds for this event, mainly through the silent auction/raffle that they put together, but also through the food trucks that were at the event, and the car-smashing event that was held there too. The Interact Club members that really ran things were Lauren Shippy, Katie Allen, Sara Gray, Addy Sherman and Alana Sprauge.
- Spring Lake Athletic Director Cavin Mohrhardt and the Spring Lake football team, led by Coach Dan Start. Coach Start had his players engaged through grocery bagging at Orchard Markets to help raise funds there, as well as helping to get things ramped up at the Tailgate event/car smashing event, and then by destroying Fruitport at their house to bring the Bayou Battle trophy back to SL. Fruitport Athletic Director Ken Erny was instrumental in the process as well since he was hosting the game this year. He was very responsive and helpful with access to their facilities, and by helping to organize the Fruitport football team to bag groceries at the Fruitport Orchard Market.
- Sponsors for this event include our long-time partner, Orchard Markets, with owner Alex Rogalla. His stores in Fruitport and Spring Lake took “football” donations the week prior to the game, and through that effort brought in over $3,420. This was a record for football sales at the O.M. stores. Our other sponsors include WGHN, Ace Hardware, Lake Michigan Credit Union, The Everyday Chef and Wife, Righteous Cuisine, Culver’s, Joe’s Auto Parts, and Lakeside Towing.
There was a surprise check presentation with David Theune, an English teacher at SLHS who was recently awarded a Fulbright Scholarship, which will allow him and his family to travel to the Netherlands to work, teach and learn abroad for the first half of 2019. Funds awarded by the scholarship left a gap of about $9,000 that the Theune’s would need to cover in order to remain in the Netherlands for the entirety of their term next year. Dave was pulled out of his lunch break and led down to our meeting room for the check presentations, which were made by Dave Rhem and Dave Stocking. The first check was for funds raised through individual Rotary Club members by a Phil King-led campaign, totaling $2,000 towards the Theune’s trip abroad. The second check was from the Rotary Club’s local services fund for an additional $5,000. Dave T. was shocked, honored and extremely grateful for the support from our Club, and plans to give us a report on the trip and his learnings when he returns next summer.
President Dave Stocking took some time at the close of the meeting to review Rotary International for the students and administrators in attendance, who may not have a good sense of what and who Rotary is. Dave highlighted the different professions that Rotarians represent across our community, and how we all come together to get work done in the community and abroad.
50/50 Winner: Brad MacLachlan