We will have the results of the Gala sometime in the next couple of weeks, as soon as all the bills are received and the net amount can be determined. Once that happens, we will divide the money between our Service Fund and School District 11 for their Arts and Sciences Programs. Grant requests at SD11 are already being formulated and sent to the SD11 office that will assemble them and then a committee, made up of personnel from SD11 and from our club, will determine the awardees. It is an exciting time for those hoping to receive some of the funds. For those of you who were at the Gala and heard one of the awardees (and the Educator of the Year in the State of Colorado for 2017), Sean Wybrant - selected from over 40,000 educators statewide - it was a very moving talk. We'll have to hear more from him in the future.
The board of directors approved spending money on shelter boxes for relief from disasters all around the country and the world. Many from our club have been wanting to help and rather than deciding which disaster is in critical need, the board decided to invest in shelter boxes for as many as the Service Fund wishes to donate. The shelter boxes, which can house a family and provide food, cost approximately $1,000 each. The Service Fund will determine how many to purchase. Please give Tom Naughton or Rodney Gullatte any feedback you wish regarding this decision and if you would like to donate specifically to this project.
To reiterate what I said last week in this column, the steering committee of Flight is entertaining suggestions for our major fundraiser next year and in years to come. Would you like to continue with Flight; would you like to change it somewhat to better provide more money for our service fund and School District 11; would you like to see a different type of fundraiser? Please give me your ideas to pass along to this year's committee. If you have some novel, new, exciting ideas for ways to raise major funding, please let me know! We need to start planning in the next couple of months to start acting on a project by January, 2018.
Also, please update your roster page so that we have a current photo of all the good looking members in our club as well as the email addresses, phone numbers, and physical addresses of you and your businesses.
This Friday, we will honor our veterans with a medley for each branch of service, led by our own Caryn Adams. Don't miss it!
Our club will be sponsoring another student going outbound in the Summer of 2018 for a youth exchange. Our applicant is currently in the interview and selection process and will know if she's selected the first week of December. In the meantime, our board has decided to host another inbound student for that time period.
Our new outbound applicant attends Discovery Canyon High School in District 20 as does our current exchange student Romi Bogarova. We feel it would be easier for our club if we had our 2018-19 inbound student attend a D11 school such as Palmer. We have had inbound exchange students at Palmer twice in the past and have a good relationship with the school, particularly with the Interact Club.
It's a long way off, but we will be needing three host families for our new inbounder to attend Palmer. The host family periods are Start of School Year in August to Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving to around Spring Break, and Spring Break to End of School Year. We have one CS Rotary family interested in hosting the first session and need to know of others who might support this wonderful program. You don't have to live in D11, but need to be willing to get the student to and from school.
If you are interested and need more information, please contact our Youth Exchange Officer, Juliana Howard, juliana.hetrick@gmail.com, our Director of Youth Services, Carol Bach, carolmbach@aol.com, or Past-President Dennis Shoemaker, hds8960@gmail.com.
Join Rotary Prime for another opportunity to volunteer for the VFW Poppy Drive over Veterans Day weekend on Saturday, Nov. 11th and Sunday, Nov. 12th from 9 – 3 pm. Please message Samantha Chapman at samanthac@sentinelsoffreedom.org for more details on locations & shift options to volunteer.
We hope you will join us before this year’s Veterans Day to support our local veterans!