2021 was a busy year and we look forward to serving the community during 2022!!  We welcome new members joining our already powerful force; Adam Buttons, Jon Mills, Katie Cloudman, Bill Salmansohn and Stacy Clark. 
 
 
 
Even during a pandemic, The Rotary Club of Pagosa Springs continues to help the youth of this community. One of our largest endeavors are scholarships for graduating High School Seniors.   Since 1982, the Club has awarded $498,125, to 186 graduates for college and vocational school scholarships. It is with great joy that we are following 14 Pagosa Springs college students, monitoring their class loads and grade levels to assure that we are being good stewards of the funds you have donated and that they are successful in their college careers.  This year, we will applaud as two of our 2018 scholarship recipients, Colton Castro and Keanan Anderson, graduate from their selected program of study. 
 
 
The Rotary Club of Pagosa Springs is excited to announce that Casey Lynn Crow has been selected to receive a scholarship in the amount of $30,000 to continue her education toward a PhD in Public Health and Policy from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.  Ms. Crow was endorsed to the Rotary District 5470 by the Rotary Club of Pagosa Springs.  District 5470. in partnership with the Rotary Club of Hampstead. The award has been approved for funding by The Rotary Foundation.  We look forward to encouraging Casey and watching her continue to pursue her passions.
 
Casey holds a bachelor’s in Political Science and Global Studies from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a masters in International Development and Humanitarian Emergencies from the London School of Economics.  As a second-year doctoral student, her research explores access to sexual and reproductive healthcare in humanitarian crises, particularly for refugees and people with disabilities.  Apart from her research, Casey is a dancer, choreographer, and owner of Pagosa Springs Dance Academy, and is passionate about merging art and activism.  Having worked with refugees in Kenya, Jordan, Lebanon, Mexico and Greece, she has witnessed the transformational power of the arts to improve mental health and promote hope, healing and connection for survivors of trauma.  Casey founded Beyond Words International in 2018 with the hope of collaborating with artists, therapists, and those serving in their communities to increase opportunities for healing, empowerment, and positive expression.
 
When Casey was notified about being awarded this scholarship, she said, “I am unspeakably honored and grateful to be chosen as a Rotary Global Grant Scholar. This award will allow me to continue my studies and conduct my fieldwork in the largest refugee camp in the world, Bidi Bidi Camp in Uganda, next year. I am thrilled to represent Rotary as I continue my research and do my best to make a difference in the world. Special thanks to the Rotary Club of Pagosa Springs for their incredible encouragement and support!”
 
 
 
 
Supporting our local teachers is no less important!  The Club provides support for classroom needs through teacher mini grants.  Last year, $2,400 was supplied in cash as well as other items that we collected to support ten specific teacher’s projects in grades kindergarten through 12th grade. 
 
 
Continuing another long-held tradition, 3rd and 4th grade students were provided with hard-back, beautifully illustrated dictionaries of their very own.
 
The Rotary Clubs' Feed Our Children is in its tenth year of serving the children of Pagosa Springs.  This joint effort of both clubs provides food for every child in the family of participating 3rd and 4th graders for the weekend, and operates throughout the school year.  This year we have our highest enrollment ever, with 32 families, involving 97 children.  As always, we receive generous support from business and individuals throughout the community and within Rotary.  We have organized into 5 squads of volunteers so that no one needs to come help more than once a month.  Flexibility has been the key word over the last two years and we are prepared to make the necessary adjustments if the health circumstances at the schools change.
 
In addition to Rotary's efforts on behalf of young people in Pagosa Springs, the Rotary Community Assistance Fund and donations from individual Rotarians also supported the Pagosa Outreach Connection, Rise Above Violence and the Food Coalition of Archuleta County with $6,450 directly helping individuals in crisis.
 
Concerns over the pandemic and the health of Rotary Exchange students around the world, once again curtailed our Rotary exchange student program and the High School Rotary Youth Leadership Awards.  As soon as it is practical and safe to do so, we hope to continue these efforts to promote peace and understanding through these important, life changing opportunities for young people.
 
Your gift to us is more important than the dollar value. It means that you share in our intent to serve our community and have fun doing it.  While we cannot wait to get back to our wonderful fund-raising events in person, we hope to have earned your continued support as we move into another year of service in our community in 2022. 
 
Please know we spend every penny thoughtfully and your continued support is even more important during these times.  Every dollar raised goes directly to projects without any overhead or administrative costs.  Check contributions can 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.
 
International Service is another huge aspect of what Rotary does in the world.  Many of our Rotarians feel strongly about the responsibility to serve in this manner and do so...from their own pockets...with great generosity and joy. 
 
As member Pat Love has said....
 
The information I’ve learned about Rotary’s powerful international impact didn’t come cheap, nor did it reinforce my comfortable, myopic view of service. As I grew more uncomfortable with my international inaction, I laid the blame mostly at the feet of David Smith. Seriously, how long can you listen to his inspiring stories of bringing the very first microscope to science teachers in the poorest parts of the world without wanting to help out? How many pictures can you see of happy faces knowing they don’t have to carry water for miles every day to keep their families alive, without wanting to support more of these efforts? So, when David presented the idea of “twinning” with a club in Niamey, Niger, I eagerly volunteered to help make that happen.

 
High school teachers in Niamey, Niger study the optical properties of double convex lenses in a teacher training workshop organized by the Niamey-Gaweye and Pagosa Springs Rotary Clubs.
 
Thanks to a reluctant knowledge of Zoom, having an active “twin-club” relationship with members of the Nia-mey-Gaweye Rotary Club in Niger has never been easier. Of course, we can still (someday) travel with David as he continues his kind, quiet, altruistic journeys; or we can develop personal relationships with the Niamey members without ever leaving home, or our pajamas! And because the Niamey-Gaweye Club offers service to remote, outlying villages, even a meager investment on our part can have impact in a part of the world rarely receiving support.