I hope that you have all been enjoying this Summer as the month of July is coming to an end. 

 

This has certainly been a busy week for our Club!  On Wednesday, we had our Club Assembly in which I announced my lofty goals for this year, then we broke down into the different Committees which makes our Club stronger.  I want to thank everyone who participated that day, I am truly grateful!  For those of you who were not able to attend this meeting, I will be assigning you to one of these Committees later this coming week, so be prepared for an email listing all members in each committee.  We ended the meeting with an in-house service project stuffing 40 backpacks for needy children in the Oak Grove region.  It was awesome, and everyone did a great job!

 

Tuesday several of us had the pleasure of helping prepare 1500 meals for children at the JA Henry YMCA, it was an amazing and eye opening experience that I hope we do again and again. Then some of us headed over to Isiah 117 House where we presented a check for $2,000 and toured their facility, and learned what their needs are, first hand!  Thank you Warren for setting up these two projects and I look forward to our Club doing more with both of these wonderful charities.

 

Saturday several of us participated at East Side Elementary handing out backpacks to the impoverished children in the Oak Grove area.  There were 145 backpacks to give out and this was the first EVER event collaborating all six Rotary Clubs: our Club, Downtown, Breakfast Club, Nooga Nights, Rotary Rocks, and UTC Roteract.  This was monumental and I'm sure you'll hear more about it in the news.  More collaborations to come!

 

Sunday we had the pleasure of many members including their families come to the Ice Cream Social at Heritage Park.  This was such a fun outing for our members and their families and I hope we have more events like this, I need a rematch in cornhole for redemption!  Thank you to Alan Johnston and Brad Cansler for putting this together.

 

This week we will have the pleasure of hearing from Tom Mundell, the President and CEO of the Coolidge National Medal of Honor Heritage Center.  Tom brings more than 35 years of leadership experience in philanthropy, strategic planning, and organizational growth.  I think we are in for a real treat on Wednesday.