Rotary Gives Thanks Day

ROTARY GIVES THANKS DAY

Aloha Wonderful District 5000 Rotarians,

We have a proud 100 years of service to our Hawaii communities and to our friends and neighbors.  Each year, we do two specific District-wide community service projects.  Rotary Gives Thanks Day occurs on Saturday, November 19 this year, and our second project, Rotarians at Work Day, will take place in April.

For Rotary Gives Thanks Day, I have received much feedback and our Rotary Rice Rally has emerged as a popular suggestion.  This event is easy to conduct, and provides a much needed commodity at a time before the holiday season.  The concept, and the execution, are pretty simple.  Each club energizes its members to buy or to solicit donations of rice, in original packaging, and then makes a donation of the rice to recipients of their choice.  These recipients can be homeless shelters, veteran’s organizations or other non-profit agencies that you support.  Collected rice may also be used for Rotary club events to feed needy recipients.

What you should do:

  1) Plan the day, to include deciding who the recipients will be.   Think about asking one of your new members to lead this effort.  It will get them off to a good start and show them we value our new members.  Get your Interact members involved, too!

   2) Set up collection points.  At these points, display the Rotary and club logos and explain to the public what our purpose is.  Publicize our good work on the day of the event.

  3) Document!  Take lots of photos of Rotarians at work on this effort.  Keep the names of all participants.  Track the amount of rice you collect (total weight) and who the recipients are.  Did I mention DOCUMENT WITH LOTS OF PHOTOS?

4) Have fun, smile a lot and thank donors.  Each donor is a potential Rotarian and we are also recruiting those who wish to enjoy fellowship and a sense of contributing to the community – the key reasons we became, and remain, Rotarians!

Following the event, I will solicit your input.  I specifically will ask for two items.  These are the number of Rotarians from your club who participated on Rice Rally Day, and the total weight of rice you collected.  I will have two prizes to award:  the first will go to the club with the highest per capita participation, and the second to the club with the highest per capita collection.  I will purchase and will donate to the two winning clubs, two Hawaiian Airlines vouchers each for travel to any destination within Hawaii, up to a value of $100 per voucher.  You may use these vouchers as a prize for any fund-raiser or membership increase drives that you wish, as long as our Rotary programs benefit.

Based upon past experience, the Rotary Rice Rally will be fun, will get your members involved, and will serve as a recruiting tool for prospective members.  I’ll be out there collecting, too, so please join me!

Richard (Dick) May, D5000 Community Service Chair