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.

Delegation from Turkmenistan Coming to Pagosa

The Rotary Club of Pagosa Springs is very excited to announce that it was selected to host six participants from Turkmenistan through the Open World Program and Rotary International. The Club had been previously honored to host a delegation for Kyrgyzstan in June of 2018.

Our Rotary Club had such an exciting experience with Kyrgyzstan Delegation in 2018, when the opportunity to show the Turkmenistan Delegation how Pagosa Springs has developed into a tourism destination we could not wait to get started! This delegation comes from a similar mountainous region in rural Turkmenistan and their purpose for visiting the United States is to develop Tourism Destination Management techniques for their community.

What a perfect fit! We will be hosting these visitors in our homes and showing them the very best that Pagosa and the surrounding area has to offer.

Just some of the opportunities we would like to expose them to include Wolf Creek Ski Area, The Springs, Navajo State Park, Chimney Rock National Monument, our National Forest Service and the They are also interested in learning how our Pagosa Springs Visitor Center, Chamber of Commerce and Tourism Boards function and to see the workings of our hotels and restaurants.

Please put the dates of our guests’ stay with us on your calendars! June 16 through June 20^th. Knowing how quickly the summer calendar fills up in Pagosa, we wanted to share this opportunity with you so that you could be thinking about how we can best utilize this opportunity. While we are excited to share our community with these guests, we are also looking forward to the chance to further promote and share Pagosa Springs and our area with the world. On June 21^st, we will transport our Delegates to our Clubs in Durango and Bayfield. Once there, they will explore similar but different tourism related venues further west, until the end of there visit and being delivered back to the airport on June 24^th.

The Pagosa Springs Rotary and the Durango and Bay Field Rotary Clubs will be leading this adventure, but we are certainly counting on your expertise and input as we develop the itinerary for these exciting guests. If you have thoughts or would like your business to be your organization can participate in this great honor, please do not hesitate to get in touch with us. Just select the Contact Us option under the Home page.

Rotary Encourages Students in Niger to Learn English

When much of North America was last covered with ice, what we know today as the Sahara Desert of North Africa was covered with trees and grasslands. Many African tribes flourished during this time, each with its own culture and language.

Over a period of 5,000 to 10,000 years the “Green Sahara” turned to an extremely hot and dry desert. The tribes adapted to the conditions or moved to peripheral areas where life was more hospitable. Despite these changes, the tribes maintained their own customs and languages.

Colonization by Europeans created countries that included many tribes, each with their own customs and languages. Niger, which encompasses the central part of the Sahara Desert, recognizes 10 tribal languages. These languages remain the preferred means of communicating within families and among friends.

Although French is the official language of Niger, only about 50% of the population is proficient. Because few Nigeriens speak English, Niger remains culturally and economically isolated from much of the world. This isolation has contributed to Niger’s being one of the poorest countries in the world.

The Rotary Club of Pagosa Springs, with support from the Rotary Foundation, has been helping Niger to lift itself from poverty by working with our twin Rotary club in Niger on several projects. Through this relationship we have learned of the need to improve English education in Niger.

Rotary Supports Science Education in Niger, Africa

Lead teachers in a high school in Niamey, Niger learn how to use voltmeters to determine the characteristics of resistors, diodes and capacitors.

The Rotary Club of Pagosa Springs is in the final phase of a project to improve science education in six high schools in Niger, Africa. There are nearly 4000 students in these schools, which include the last three years of secondary education. Girls make up 42% of the students.

Niger is a large country that includes much of the Sahara Desert. By most measures of prosperity, Niger as the least developed country in Africa. Yet, many students have set high goals for themselves. They want to become physicians, engineers, airline pilots and teachers. To achieve these goals, these students need access to quality education, including modern science classes.

Poorly developed countries need good science education if they are to lift themselves out of poverty. Niger has little coal, gas or oil, but it has lots of Sahara Desert sunshine. It also has substantial mineral deposits. Developing solar power and mineral assets is a high priority and will require engineers and technicians who understand science.

Although science teachers in Niger understand theory rather well, they have had little or no practical experience. They have not done lab experiments because they have had no lab equipment and no training. They have no lab manuals that describe how to do experiments.

The principal goals of our project is to help the Nigerien teachers develop lab manuals that align with their curriculum, provide supplies that are necessary to perform these experiments, and to train the teachers to perform the experiments. Good lab experiments help students to understand theory, to develop good technical skills and to see how science is connected to their lives.

High school science students use equipment provided by Rotary to study basic electronics

After travelling for 30 hours, I arrived in the capital of Niger, Niamey, with my five suitcases filled with lab supplies. Five Rotarians from our twin partner Rotary Club in Niamey met me at the airport and cleared the way through customs. All projects supported by the Rotary Foundation must have a host club in the country where the project will take place. The host clubs know the needs of their communities and how to best meet these needs

Having completed the first week of teacher training, I attended a physics class in the equivalent of our junior year of high school. There were 50 students, about 15 of which were girls.

There were no text books, so the teacher worked from a blackboard and dictated. The students took meticulous notes. This classroom is different from most physics classrooms in Niger because the teacher had some lab supplies, which had been provided several years ago by our Rotary Club.

The current project, which started three years ago, will cost $60,000. Most of the funding comes from a grant from the Rotary Foundation, which receives its funding from donations from 1.2 million Rotarians in 200 countries. Rotarians volunteering their time increase the value of these grants several fold.

My visit will last three weeks. The first week, which we have just completed, focused on training three lead teachers to do the lab experiments. During the next two weeks, these lead teachers will train an additional 30 science teachers from the six high schools supported by this grant. Each of these schools will have the equipment necessary to perform the lab experiments and teachers who have been trained to perform the experiments.

Rotary Cooks and Serves for Loaves & Fishes

We had a very tasty Creamy Chicken Green Chili Stew this week thanks to our Sponsor, Pagosa Springs Rotary Club!

We served 230 hot meals and 385 frozen meals for a total of 615 meals this week.

Rotarians Ronnie Doctor and Larry McClintock assisted in the kitchen on Thursday and Kim Moore braved the not so bad weather outside distributing the meals. We even had people come back for seconds.

Our mystery donator struck again and we received $195 in donations for Loaves and Fishes.

Updates on Ukraine

Updates from
District Governor Sam Kevan

Rotary’s area of focus for February: Peace and Conflict Prevention/Resolution

How we have supported Ukraine locally

While an ongoing conflict rages in Ukraine, it is difficult to see how we can help to build peace and prevent conflicts from our little corner of the world. While we, as Rotarians, are powerless to deter Putin we can continue to help ease the suffering of the Ukrainian people.

Early on Rotarians contributed $15 million dollars to the Ukrainian Disaster Relief Fund. Over the last year this has funded many projects in collaboration with Ukrainians on the ground:

Provide ambulances, medical supplies, and medical units for the sick and injured.
Provide food, shelter supplies, water purification systems, and generators to ease the suffering of the civilian population.
District 5470 along with District 5440 (Northern CO, WY, and Western NE) District 5390 (Montana), and District 5180 (Central California), has used $200,000 of that money to provide beds, bedding supplies, and water purifiers to a Rotary Club in Kyiv.

As of January 30, Rotary International has reopened the Ukrainian Disaster Relief Fund for more donations. It’s another opportunity for District 5470 Rotary clubs and Rotarians to continue supporting the Ukrainian people. Donations to this Fund through the remainder of 2023 will be used for grants through June, 2024.

You can support THE ROTARY FOUNDATION to build peace and prevent conflicts worldwide

Through Peace Scholarships, our 7 World Peace Centers educate young men and women from all over the world in the important work of diplomacy and conflict resolution.
Funding of other areas of focus include: Disease Treatment and Prevention, Literacy, Water and Sanitation, Maternal and Child Health, Community Development, Supporting our Environment and Empowering Girls initiatives all help to alleviate problems that can ultimately sow the seeds of war and conflict.

I ask you to continue contributing to the ANNUAL FUND of THE ROTARY FOUNDATION. You can rest assured that you are helping to build peace and prevent future wars in our world.

March is Clean Water and Sanitation Month

Clean water is a basic need for human beings. When people, especially children, have access to clean water, they live healthier and more productive lives. However, at least 3,000 children die each day from diseases caused by unsafe water, which is what motivates our members to build wells, install rainwater harvesting systems, and teach community members how to maintain new infrastructure.

While very few people die of thirst, millions die from preventable waterborne diseases, providing the impetus for our members to also improve sanitation facilities in undeveloped countries. Members start by providing toilets and latrines that flush into a sewer or safe enclosure and then add education programs to promote hand-washing and other good hygiene habits.

From the various water projects in which Rotary has participated, we have come to know the obstacles that many people across the globe face when it comes to some of the basic necessities of life. We tend to take for granted the clean and generally safe and plentiful water sources to which we have access.

Rotary International, through the combined actions of individual Rotarians and Rotary Clubs, seeks to assure that all people have adequate access to clean and safe water. The Rotary theme for March, Water and Sanitation, asks us to focus on the life changing improvements that we can make through these international projects to provide a more readily available and healthy supply of water to all people.

2023 Sponsorship Campaign

February 14, 2023 – We LOVE our SPONSERS!

The members of the Pagosa Springs Rotary Club would like to thank our sponsors for their generous contribution to our 2022 fundraising campaign. These business and individual contributions helped us to raise over $45,850 this past year.

Our largest endeavor is providing scholarships for graduating High School Seniors. Since 1982, the Club has awarded $518,125, to 192 graduates. It is with great joy that we are following 13 Pagosa Springs college students, monitoring their class loads and grades to assure that we are being good stewards of the funds you have donated and that they are successful in their college careers.

The Club provides support for classroom needs through teacher mini grants. Last year, 14 specific teacher’s projects, unfunded through the schools, were able to come to fruition through Rotary.

3^rd grade students were provided with hard-back, beautifully illustrated dictionaries of their very own.

Our Exchange Student, Agustin Periz Leal, from Las Grutas, Argentina arrived in August. He is enjoying our community and attending High School. We are thrilled to offer him this opportunity.

Rotary Youth Leadership Awards will be granted to 2 outstanding Sophomores or Juniors. The RYLA Retreat weekend provides a series of professionally developed presentations and activities that take participants through a process of assessing their personal leadership characteristics and understanding the ethics of leadership and setting personal goals.

The Club also continues to support the Pagosa Outreach Connection with representation on that review panel and funding for those in need of a one-time or emergency ‘hand-up’.

Your sponsorship is acknowledged and celebrated on our website! If you have a website URL, folks visiting pagosaspringsrotary.org can click on YOUR LOGO as our sponsor and be immediately re-directed to YOUR WEBSITE. It is one way we can say Thank You all year long. How many our ‘clicks’ or re-directs from our Rotary page directly to your website content can be monitored. Your company or name will be featured prominently as our sponsor in our publications and events.

We hope to have earned your trust and continued support as we move into another year of service in our community in 2023. One of our Rotarians will be calling or stopping by your business to answer questions or provide more information. We spend every penny thoughtfully. Check contributions can also be made payable to the Pagosa Rotary Community Assistance Fund and mailed to Rotary Club of Pagosa Springs at PO Box 685, Pagosa Springs, CO 81147.

On behalf of the Rotary Club of Pagosa Springs.

Rotary Responds to Earthquake

Rotary responds to earthquake that has devastated areas of Turkey and Syria

Turkey and Syria were struck by a devastating earthquake on 6 February that has killed tens of thousands of people, destroyed thousands of homes and other structures, and left people across the region without shelter in bitterly cold winter weather.

The Rotary world responded to this catastrophe immediately. RI President Jennifer Jones activated our disaster response efforts, communicated with the affected districts, and encouraged governors in those regions to apply for disaster response grants and share information about their relief efforts so that Rotary can amplify the calls for support.

The Rotary Foundation Trustees decided that all donations made, from now until 31 March, to the Turkey/Syria Disaster Response Fund will be used to aid earthquake relief projects. In addition, the Trustees made available more than $125,000 to Rotary districts affected by the earthquake through Disaster Response Grants.

February is Peace & Conflict Resolution Month

February - World Understanding Month

Area if Focus: Peace and conflict prevention/resolution. The month of February is very special in the Rotary calendar because it includes the anniversary of the first meeting of Rotary held on February 23, 1905, now designated as the World Understanding and Peace Day.

Organize 'MUNA' (Modal United Nations Assembly) at College Level
Engage in reconciliation of broken families, restoring relationship
Help How people can live in peace with their families and their neighbors
Assist Young Single mothers who are victims of sexually abused through training them with self-help projects. e.g. Opening small business that may help them with their children

Rotary has designated months to help clubs Develop meeting agendas, projects, or public image campaigns based on these special occasions.

The Concept is to give all the clubs of the District a Ready Reckoner of the types of Service Projects, which could be indulged, during the Year, and help plan the activities of the year, mostly based on the Rotary Calendar i.e. Rotary Designated Months.

Rotary Fun Facts

First Project of World's First Service Club

The first service project of the first Rotary Club was the installation of public toilets in Chicago in 1917. This project made Rotary the World's First Service Club.

Rotary's primary motto is "Service Above Self."

There's a secondary motto: "One profits most who serves best."

There are more than 1.2 Million Rotarians all over the world in more than 35,000 Rotary Clubs in more than 200 countries in all geographic areas.

The first women joined Rotary in 1987. Today, more than 196,000 women are members of Rotary International.

The Rotary Foundation Ambassadorial Scholarships are the world's largest, privately-funded scholarships.

The first Rotaract Club was formed in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Rotarians in the United States make up 28 percent of all Rotarians worldwide.

The country of Nauru has the least number of Rotarians of any country in the world, 11. Formerly known as Pleasant Island, Naura is in Micronesia in the South Pacific. Its nearest neighbor is Banaba Island in Kiribati, 182 miles to the east.

The Rotary emblem was printed on a commemorative stamp for the first time in 1931, at the time of the Vienna Convention.

Rotary became bilingual in 1916, when it organized a non-English-speaking Club in Cuba.

Arch Klumph established the "Rotary Endowment Fund" in 1917, when the Kansas City, MO Club donated $26.50. In 1928, it became The Rotary Foundation.

In 1929, The Rotary Foundation made its first gift, $500, to the International Society for Crippled Children.

Rotary first adopted the name "Rotary International" in 1922, when the name was changed from the International Association of Rotary Clubs.

Rotary first established Paul Harris Fellowships in 1957, for contributors of $1,000 to The Rotary Foundation.

In 1968, the first Rotary Club banner to orbit the moon was carried by astronaut Frank Borman, a member of the Houston Space Center Rotary Club.

The first Rotary convention was in Chicago in 1910. There were 16 Rotary Clubs.

The first head of state to address a Rotary convention was President Warren G. Harding in 1923, in St. Louis.

In 1979, Rotary began a project to immunize six million children against polio in the Philippines. This led to Rotary making polio eradication its top priority.

In 1988, Rotary began the PolioPlus campaign with an initial fundraising pledge of $120 million.

Providing vitamin A supplements during polio immunization has averted an estimated 1.5 million childhood deaths since 1998 – the "plus" in PolioPlus.

Rotary's fiscal year began the day after its conventions until 1913. Starting in 1913, it begins on July 1st.

The first Rotary Boys' Week was held in New York City in May 1920, by the Rotary Club of New York.

In 1934, Boys' Week became known as Youth Week, and in 1936, Boys' and Girls' Week.

In 2010, Youth Service became Rotary's fifth Avenue of Service.

During the 1920s and 1930s, Paul Harris traveled extensively, ceremoniously planting trees to symbolize goodwill and friendship.

January of 1911 was the first issue of The National Rotarian. The name was changed to The Rotarianin 1912, when Clubs were organized in Canada.

The largest Rotary Club is the Oklahoma City Downtown Club with over 600 members.

The fifth Rotary Test: Is It Fun?

December is Disease Prevention Month

December is Disease Prevention and Treatment Month

What is your Rotary Club doing to focus your efforts on Disease Prevention and Treatment?

Rotary's top priority is the eradication of polio, but our members take on far greater responsibilities to fight disease. They set up health camps and training facilities in undeveloped countries and in communities struggling with HIV/AIDS and malaria. They also design and build the infrastructure for doctors, nurses, governments, and partners to reach the one in six people in the world who can't afford to pay for healthcare. Read more to find out how YOUR Rotary Club can focus on this important Area of Focus.....

December is Disease Prevention and Treatment Month on the Rotary Calendar.

This is one of the Foundations Areas of Focus and one in which many of us would be aware of the numerous projects around the world supported by clubs and the Foundation. Look at your role in promoting improved health at home and abroad and supporting these vital programs that contribute not only to healthy communities but peaceful communities.

Disease prevention and treatment takes on many forms, from supporting studies to helping immunize people to improving drinking water and the sanitation infrastructure. The world relies on Rotary to tackle these global challenges, and to set an example for others to follow.

Rotary Cooks and Serves for Loaves and Fishes