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Upcoming meetings

Starting in the new Rotary year (July 1 - June 30), we will have a new meeting format and schedule:

- 1st Wednesday of the month 5:30-7pm (starting Aug. 7, since the July date conflicts with 4th of July holiday), we will meet in the evenings as we have been, with a 5:30-6pm social gathering, then a meeting 6 - 7pm with a guest speaker. Location Mountain Lodge conference room in Mountain Village, which has a bar downstairs for drinks.

- 3rd Wednesday of the month, starting July 17, noon - 1:15pm lunch: This is a new format. We’ll meet at Wilkinson Public Library’s Program Room for a brown-bag style lunch (though some drinks and snacks will be provided). Instead of a guest speaker, we will have a Rotary club member talk about his or her work or special projects. In this way, we’ll network and get to know fellow members better. We’ll also use this meeting more for club business, so that members will be more involved in planning and executing our club’s actions for the year.

We will also strive to organize some casual happy hours in addition to these two meetings/month.

Updated Club Brochure En Español

Si habla español, por favor lea un PDF del folleto del club, haga clic aquí.

For an English version, click here.

New Leadership for New Rotary Year

The Telluride Daily Planet ran a story about our club's leadership headlined, "Women Lead Telluride Rotary as Club Enters Its 80th Year." Read the full story here.

At our club's annual special meeting in June, the following officers were elected for 2024-25: President Sarah Lavender Smith, Treasurer Anne-Britt Ostlund, Secretary/President-Elect Ariana Sites, and President-Elect-Nominee and Membership Chair Lee Shea Betten. Immediate Past President Kaitlyn James also will serve on the board, along with at-large board members Steve Nordstrom and Jim Austin, and committee chairs Nancy Kerr (International), Patricia Kiernan (Youth), and Madeline Allen (Community Service/Environment).

An excerpt from the news article gives background on the club's mission and the club president's priorities:

"Telluride Rotary is a nonreligious, nonpolitical service organization that is part of Rotary International, a global network with about 1.2 million members that focuses on seven areas of concern: peace and conflict resolution, disease prevention, clean water and sanitation projects, maternal and child health, education and literacy, community development, and the environment. Locally, Telluride Rotary is perhaps best known for sponsoring a youth exchange that sends one or two high students to live and study abroad and hosts an international student who lives with local families and attends Telluride High School.

"Over the past five years, Lavender Smith noted, the club diversified the age and geographic representation of its members. “Representation matters, and one of my key goals is to attract and welcome Latino members into our club and do more to support and collaborate with organizations that serve the region’s immigrant and Spanish-speaking community,” she said."

Pictured above (L-R): Kaitlyn James, Sarah Lavender Smith, Ariana Sites, Lee Shea Betten. Photo by Michael Mowery

Congratulations Telluride Rotary Scholarship Recipients

Congratulations Class of 2024!

Telluride Rotary is pleased to announce college scholarships awarded to seniors from Telluride High. These scholarships are made possible through the generosity of donors to Telluride Rotary, and thanks to a dedicated Scholarship Committee led by Karen Lavender that reviewed more than 30 applications to determine these recipients. The committee took many factors into account, including financial need, community service, academic achievement, and a direction toward doing good in their community and beyond after graduation. Our club raised $11,500 to be awarded this year. The funds will go directly to each student’s college to offset tuition.

All five of these students have exceptional qualifications and compelling life experiences.

Our club’s largest scholarship, for $5000, was awarded to Cheska Hrupcin (pictured at left), who will attend Boston University in the fall to study Entomology, Ecology, and Evolutionary Biology.

Our two scholarships for $2500 each went to Aizy Alvarez Lescano and Selma Tutt-Pyk. Both are first-generation college-bound students. Aizy will attend Colorado Mesa University to study Nursing. Selma will attend Colorado College to study Psychology.

An anonymous Rotarian started a scholarship this year called the Rotary Endeavor Scholarship for $1000, to support a student in a vocational or trade study, who shows a strong desire to accomplish their training to completion. As with the college scholarships above, this one is need-based. The inaugural Rotary Endeavor Scholarship goes to Kerry Hauze. Kerry has a passion for mechanics and will attend CMU Tech (a branch of Colorado Mesa University) where he will earn an Associate’s Degree in Diesel Technology so he can become a high performance mechanic.

Finally, Telluride Rotary’s annual John Micetic Athletic Award recognizes an outstanding athlete with a $500 scholarship. This year’s Micetic Athletic Award goes to Brady Holbrook, a multi-sport athlete with a passion for hockey, who will study at the University of Virginia’s undergraduate business school. See this Instagram post for photos of all our scholarship recipients.

Additionally, we presented a very special high school student with the Telluride Rotary Service Above Self Award, which recognizes a Telluride High School senior for outstanding community service and concern for others. Congratulations to this year's recipient, Avery Ireland! Avery (pictured below), who will attend Northern Arizona University, is a go-getter involved in many clubs and projects at the high school. A plaque hangs in Telluride High’s front office with the names of our Service Above Self recipients. She also receives a $250 cash prize from our club.

Could you make a difference in a high school student’s life by making a tax-deductible donation to the Telluride Rotary Foundation for scholarships? In addition to giving through our Donate Now button, you may mail a check made out to Telluride Rotary Foundation with "scholarships" in the memo line and mail to PO Box 1265, Telluride, CO 81435. Or you may donate through Venmo @T-ride_Rotary_Foundation and indicate “scholarships” with the payment.

Rotary Youth Exchange Update - Host Families Needed

Welcome Kim! A Rotary Youth Exchange (RYE) student from Thailand, Kritsadiphat “Kim” Thongdong—pictured here with his host parents—is spending the school year at Telluride High and generously hosted by Dawn Davis, Dylan Brooks, and their sons Philip and Theo. Philip recently returned from a year in Austria as a RYE student. Another Telluride student, Liam Intemann, also spent last year abroad as a RYE student in Argentina.

Telluride Rotary Club annually sends one or two high school students abroad on Rotary Youth Exchange, and welcomes one foreign student into our community. For the 2023-24 school year, we're excited to sponsor Telluride High students Mesa Barnes and Macy McRoberts to spend a school year abroad, living with host families. Mesa will go to Colombia, and Macy to Romania.

Rotary Youth Exchange enhances peace and international understanding by hosting high school students abroad to experience different cultures. To make this life-changing program work, we need host families! Host families host an exchange student for approximately three months. While it’s helpful to be a household with a high school student, families with younger kids, or empty-nester couples or single households also are welcome to apply to host. For more info see mountainandplainsrye.com and contact our club’s Rotary Youth Exchange officer Patricia Kiernan kiernanpatricia6@gmail.com.

Students who are interested in applying to go abroad on Rotary Youth Exchange also should visit the website mountainandplainsrye.com. The program is accepting applications from high school sophomores and juniors to live abroad for the 2024-25 school year, and applications are due by December 1.

Through Rotary Youth Exchange, Rotary clubs build cross-cultural ties and create international ambassadors of goodwill and understanding.

Pictured here (L-R): Macy McRoberts, THS student who’s in Romania; Annemarie Davidova, a RYE student from the Czech Republic who lived with host families in Telluride during the 2022-23 school year; and Mesa Barnes, a THS student spending the year in Colombia.

Recent Telluride Rotary Club Donations

In the Rotary year of 2022-23, our club's main International project involved supporting a daycare center in Slovakia, near the Ukraine border, that is dedicated to helping children and their mothers who are Ukrainian war refugees. We donated $4000 to help grow the small but impactful Radost Center for Mothers and Children in Kosice, Slovakia. Read the Telluride Daily Planet article about it. Our other International grant, of $300, contributed to the Rotary Club of Vail/Eagle's grant to build a clean-water project benefitting several towns in Honduras.

Locally, our club donated $250 to sponsor the community Trash Bash cleanup in May, and we provided volunteers to pick up approximately 70 pounds of trash. We also are co-sponsoring the June 24 Community Fiesta for to celebrate immigrant heritage with a $250 donation. And, we are sponsoring a Norwood high school student to attend the Rotary Youth Leadership Academy this June, at a cost of $350.

Earlier in the year, our club gave $500 to sponsor the Telluride AIDS Benefit Student Fashion Show and $500 to support Angel Baskets, which runs the Telluride Food Pantry. We also sponsored, with a $500 grant, the Out of the Darkness Walk for suicide prevention. Pictured here are some of the Telluride Rotary members who participated in the walk.

Last year, our club sponsored a Teen First Aid/CPR workshop in partnership with Wilkinson Public Library to teach teens life-saving skills and earn certification for child care, camp counseling, and other summer jobs. We also made donations to two nonprofits working to support maternal and child health, literacy, and economic development in Uganda. We donated $2500 to African Women Rising and $2500 to International Midwife Assistance. We invited the executive director of each organization to speak at our meeting via Zoom, to learn about the critically important work their organizations do to improve the lives and education of women in Northern Uganda.

Also in the prior Rotary year, our club approved granting $1000 to support the Telluride Medical Center's covid fund for staff support; $500 to the ShelterBox disaster relief organization; and $500 for the Telluride AIDS Benefit Student Fashion Show. We also contributed $500 to support the Rotary International Global Grant to build new schools and support girls' education in Kenya.

"Mountain High Service"