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Are you an established professional who wants to make positive changes in your community and the world? Our club members are dedicated people who share a passion for community service and friendship. Becoming a Rotarian connects you with a diverse group who share your drive to give back.

Rotary Supports Community Through Pandemic

During the COVID pandemic, the Pagosa Springs Rotary Club actively continues to serve our community and those most in need. The Rotary Club’s “Feed Our Children” program was established nine years ago by Rotarians Jo Bridges and Lassie Olin to meet the needs of children in elementary school who frequently came to school on Mondays and reported to their teachers that they were hungry over the weekend. Often these children utilized the free and reduced food program at the Pagosa Springs Elementary school during the week but were left without food support over the weekend.

When school suddenly switched to on-line this spring due to the pandemic, we had to quickly adapt our food model. For the past nine years, Rotarians have purchased large quantities of food and stored it in a food pantry, and then each week we would pack backpacks for individual families. On Fridays we would transport the backpacks to the elementary school and at the end of the school day Rotarians would hand out the backpacks to each child.

Fortunately, when the COVID related changes occurred in the local school, the school district decided to continue to provide daily breakfasts and lunches to those families in need. The Rotary Club has been able to work with the school transportation department, who agreed to deliver our weekend food via the school bus routes, as they were doing for the daily school food delivery. Rotarians have continued to serve the same families who had been in the program when the school closed.

Our communities’ economic strain continues, so when the school district received funds to be able to deliver food Monday through Friday throughout the summer, the Pagosa Springs Rotary Club jumped on board too. We reduced our volunteers to only three people working each week, two packing and one taking the bags to the bus barn. By doing this we were able to work in entirely separate areas safely. Currently, the Rotary “Feed Our Children” backpack program is serving 58 children weekly.

Africa region declared free of wild poliovirus

The World Health Organization (WHO) on 25 August announced that transmission of the wild poliovirus has officially been stopped in all 47 countries of its African region. This is a historic and vital step toward global eradication of polio, which is Rotary’s top priority.

After decades of hard won gains in the region, Rotary and its partners in the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) — WHO, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, UNICEF, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and Gavi, the vaccine alliance — are proclaiming the milestone an achievement in public health. They offer it as proof that strong commitment, coordination, and perseverance can rid the world of polio.

The certification that the African region is free of wild poliovirus comes after the independent Africa Regional Certification Commission (ARCC) conducted thorough field verifications that confirmed no new cases and analyzed documentation of polio surveillance, immunization, and laboratory capacity by Cameroon, Central African Republic, Nigeria, and South Sudan. The commission had already accepted the documentation of the other 43 countries in the region.

The last cases of polio caused by the wild virus in the African region were recorded in Nigeria’s northern state of Borno in August 2016, after two years with no cases. Conflict, along with challenges in reaching mobile populations, had hampered efforts to immunize children there.

Rotary Awards $27,000 in Scholarships

The Pagosa Springs Rotary Club is proud to announce those individuals receiving 2020 Rotary Scholarships totaling $27,000.

Megan Foster---Megan plans to attend the University of Utah to study Kinesiology with an emphasis in exercise science.

Mark Holladay—Mark will attend Colorado School of Mines majoring in Computer Programming with an emphasis in game design.

Grace Thompson—Grace will attend Colorado State University to study Art Education.

Tay Barker–-Tay will attend Mesa State University and will pursue a Welding certification.

Daniel Laos—Daniel plans to attend Tarrant County College and will pursue an Emergency Medical Technician certification.

Josselyn Pina—Josselyn will be attending San Juan College and plans to study Nursing.

Rotary Donates $1,000 to Rise Above Violence

The Pagosa Springs Rotary Club donated $1,000 to the local nonprofit Rise Above Violence to help support their increased caseload resulting from COVID-19. Archuleta County Undersheriff Derek Woodman noted in a recent Sun article that there has been an “uptick” in domestic violence calls over the past month and Rise Above Violence, a local nonprofit dedicated to assisting victims of domestic violence and sexual assault, has seen its call volume increase.

Rotary. At Your Service

While the Pagosa Springs Rotary Clubs are widely known for their fun and imaginative fundraising events such as the Kentucky Derby Party, Ice Melt Contest, Las Vegas Casino Night, Jeans and Jewels Barn Dance and Gary Morris Concert, you may not know how far reaching the results of the monies raised actually go. It's all about the club's motto, "Service Above Self".

Locally, one of our largest endeavors go to scholarships for PSHS graduating students. Since 1983, Rotary has awarded over $450,000 to 174 students, to be used for advanced education in colleges and trade schools. In 2019 alone, $37,000 was awarded.

Rotary supplies weekly manpower and food to the elementary school Backpack Program, filling in the need for food left by the gap between Friday's school lunch program and the Monday morning bell. Rotarians pick up highway trash, place benches for those awaiting public transportation, give beautifully crafted dictionaries to every third grader, endow teacher mini-grants to defray their expenses, donate monies and items to the Food Pantry, help fund the GGP Greenhouse Project, host foreign students for the Student Exchange Program plus send local students to study abroad, fund expenses for high school students to attend RYLA, a leadership training program and assist the town with the 4th of July Parade. Rewarding, fun and in some cases, life changers.

Internationally, we are the face of eradicating Polio from the world. We're almost there. While Polio still exists in two countries, between Rotary International and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, it only a matter of time before this deadly disease will be forever gone.

Your local Rotary also funds educational and humanitarian efforts to Niger and Senegal and has donated medical vehicles in Pakistan. Rotary monetarily assists other regional clubs with funds for some of their projects, like the installation of clean water systems and wheelchairs in Mexico and Central America.

Wanting to be there when our community is in need, Rotary has just authorized an additional expenditure of $15,000 for food and other community needs related to COVID-19 crisis. Rotary knows their 2020 fund raising efforts may not be as good as in years past, for obvious economic reasons. However, they will do what they can to help. After all, isn't it all about, "Service Above Self"?

The Hatcher Lake Ice Melt Winners

Spring is sprung and the Lake Hatcher ice melted enough to drop the fifty-five gallon barrel, containing a clock, to the depths of the lake. This proved bad news for the clock but great news for three lucky people who won some serious money.

The contest was based on guessing the exact date, hour, minute and second that the ice would melt enough to drop the barrel in the water, thus stopping the clock. According to the clock reading, this happened on March 26, at 3:53 and 41 seconds. Missing the exact time by an astonishing two minutes and 15 seconds and winning $1,000 for the closest guess was Lisa Gamber, second place, winning $500, was Dawn Eggleston and third place went to Warren Brown, winning $250.

Sounds like an easy contest but there's more than meets the eye. Getting the barrel on the lake's two foot thick ice late in early February was a bit of a chore, as there's always the chance of slipping and falling. Retrieving the barrel from the cold watery depths is another story.

April 2, 2020 Virtual Rotary Meeting

Livia Lynch is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom Rotary meeting.

Topic: Pagosa Springs Rotary

Time: Apr 2, 2020 12:00 PM Mountain Time (US and Canada)

Join Zoom Meeting

https://zoom.us/j/3183226952

Meeting ID: 318 322 6952

Speaker: Dr. Rhonda Webb, speaking about COVID-19

Rotary Continues to Feed Our Children

The Rotary Club of Pagosa Springs continues to do its outstanding work of making sure our children are fed on the weekends. During this economically and emotionally challenging time, its all the more important that these efforts continue. We are providing nourishment to approximately 60 children! Rotary is committed to continuing this effort for as long as we are able!

There are obstacles to overcome no doubt!! We don't take lightly making sure our volunteers and families are SAFE and PROTECTED. You can help us keep this pantry stocked! Donations can be made to Pagosa Springs Community Assistance Fund - Feed our Children, PO Box 685, Pagosa Springs, CO 81147.

Rotary Meetings Go Virtual

Nothing like a pandemic will stop the Rotary Club of Pagosa Springs from gathering in a safe manner to keep supporting the community!

Until guidelines are issued indicating it is safe to gather in person, The Rotary Club of Pagosa Springs will be meeting virtually using an APP called ZOOM. The meetings will still be at noon on Thursdays but safely from everyone's home. I will post an invitation for the meeting on April 2 in the next couple of days.

You are welcome to join us! You don't have to be a Rotarian to attend!

Our guest speaker will be Rhonda Webb, CEO of the hospital addressing COVID-19

Hatcher Lake Ice Melt Contest Update

Posted by Shellie Peterson on Mar 30, 2020

The barrel is still on the ice!!! We are waiting for the ice to melt and safe conditions to retrieve the barrel and announce the WINNERS!

No more guesses can be purchased.

The grand prize winner gets $1000 and priceless bragging rights.
Second place gets $500 and slightly-less-priceless bragging rights.
Third place gets a cool $250.
Proceeds will go towards supporting the Rotary Club of Pagosa Springs Graduating High School Senior Scholarship fund.

Who We Play For

3rd Grade Dictionaries Delivered

Posted by Shellie Peterson

Once again, Rotary delivers! Rotarians spent time with the 3rd grade students delivering and discovering their new color illustrated dictionaries. The children are always excited about this book. It is their only book from school that belongs to them, they put their name in and they can take it home to share with their family. Students were instructed about how to look up words, read the definitions and the way the word was used in a sentence. It is always a very fun event for Rotarians.

Jaime Novoa, the club's exchange student from Spain, was very interested in the children's reactions! Five classrooms of students received around 25 Dictionaries for each classroom at a cost of around $2,000. The Rotary Club of Pagosa Springs has been performing this service for 15 years, 14 of which have been under the leadership of JoAnn Laird.