Foundation Dinner

Celebrate 100 years of the Rotary Foundation and meet Rotarians from our area Rotary Clubs.  Speaker Jean Irwin will provide an inspirational story and presentation of the power of Rotary.

Jean Irwin, a retired teacher of the deaf who lies in Rancho Cordova, will be the keynote speaker at the event, which runs from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Winters Community Center, 201 Railroad Ave. The event begins with a social time featuring hors d’oeuvres, wine, beer, soda, water and networking.

Irwin’s Ambassadorial Scholarship in 1989 allowed her to do research into reading and deafness while she earned her master’s degree at Nottingham University in England. She took those skills into the classroom, where she taught preschool through 12th grade. She was honored as Reading Teacher of the Year in 1992 by the International Reading Association, and received the “Best of Education” award in 2004 from the Reno Gazette Journal, her local newspaper.

In 2009, Irwin received the “Service Above Self” award from Rotary International. She has spoken at more than 250 conferences to both Rotarians and teachers of the deaf about what she learned as an Ambassadorial Scholar. 

rwin moved beyond the classroom when she worked as a grassroots coordinator for passage of a bill making testing of hearing mandatory before a newborn baby leaves a hospital in Nevada. That state moved from 36th to eighth in the nation for children tested at birth for hearing loss just two years after this bill passed, resulting in the early intervention that is so critical to language development.

Now the literacy chairwoman for Rotary’s District 5160, which includes several dozen clubs in Northern California, she wants to use what she learned about reading to foster more literacy involvement from Rotarians.

Irwin married David Hatfield in June 2010 and they spent part of their honeymoon at the Rotary International Convention in Montreal. She is the mother of Kent, 20, a student at the University of Nevada, and Katy, 25, an actress in New York City.