| Posted by Livia Cloman Lynch on Jun 26, 2021 |
The Pagosa Springs Rotary Club is proud to announce those individuals receiving 2021 Rotary Scholarships totaling $21,125. Ella Blechman---Ella plans to attend the University of Colorado to study Political Science with emphasis in systems of government and political behavior. Madeline Metzger--Madeline will attend the University of the Incarnate Word in San Antonio where she plans to obtain a nursing degree. Lorah Jacobson—Lorah plans to attend Otero Junior College and will pursue an Associates of Arts degree in Education. Nicole Bartz—Nicole will attend Colorado State University and will pursue a degree in Biology with a concentration in animal physiology, while minoring in Art. Kylie Keuning—Kylie plans to attend Calvin University in Grand Rapids, MI and she will pursue a five-year Bachelor to Master’s program for Speech Pathology and Audiology. Ella Hemenger—Ella will be attending the University of Northern Colorado and plans to major in Elementary Education. The Pagosa Springs Rotary Club congratulates the outstanding class of 2021 and wishes each of them success in their future endeavors. Since 1983, the Pagosa Springs Rotary Club has awarded a total of $498,125 in scholarships to 186 local high school graduates. The Pagosa Springs Rotary Club would like to thank the Pagosa Springs community for their continued support of Rotary fundraisers and sponsorships that have made our local scholarships possible again this year. Additionally, the Pagosa Springs Rotary Club was pleased to receive Colorado Opportunity Scholarship Initiative matching grant funds this year. |
The Pagosa Springs Rotary Club is a diverse group of engaged individuals participating through friendship and camaraderie in opportunities to serve our community and other communities around the world. We welcome members who are passionate about community service and who embrace the Rotary motto of "Service Above Self". 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 go. It is 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 $498,125 to 186 students, to be used for advanced education in colleges and trade schools. |
|
Read more...
|
|
|
| Posted by Shellie Peterson on Jun 26, 2021 |
|
The Rotary Club of Pagosa Springs inducted new Officers and extended thanks to those Officers and Board Members who were outgoing. Among the Directors whose term is completed, Art Benzel, Jenelle Syverson, Bill Hubbard and Livia Cloman Lynch as Immediate Past President. Directors elected to serve an additional term are Larry McClintock and James Garrett. Newly elected to the Board are Sam Pittmon and Pat Love. Allen Roth was installed as the 2021-2022 Rotary President. Congratulations Allen!! Our immense gratitude goes out to Mike and Renee Vanover. What a difficult year to be President of Rotary!! Through all of the Zoom meetings, Mike remained steadfast in holding the Club together and encouraging our members. Michael C. Branch was honored for his many years of service to the Rotary Club of Pagosa Springs and the Pagosa Springs Rotary Club Scholarship Foundation Inc. For many years, Mike Branch has offered his professional services to the Rotary Club and the Scholarship Foundation. His services were way overdue to be acknowledged by the Club!! Thank You Mike for all you have done for us in the pursuit of serving this community and the graduating class of High School Seniors since 1983!! Patty Tillerson was our special guest. Patty and Bob Tillerson's love and commitment to Rotary is well known in this community! She is seated here with Larry Parks, husband of our wonderful Pat Love. A beautiful afternoon to celebrate everything we do in this community and in the world. |
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, provides 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, provide and serve at Loaves & Fishes, 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. Wanting to be there when our community is in need, Rotary has had authorized an additional expenditure of $15,000 for food and other community needs related to COVID-19 crisis. Rotary knows their 2021 fund raising efforts may not be as good as in years past, for obvious economic reasons. However, we will do what we can to help. After all, isn't it all about, "Service Above Self"? |
|
Read more...
|
|
|
| Posted by Pat Love on Jun 26, 2021 |
|
I came to Rotary “later in life” just as I was winding down a career that included many years of international service. Tired of long-distance travel, feeling enormous gratitude for the opportunities I’d had in many countries, I was eager to put my energy into making a difference in our local community. With enthusiasm, I volunteered for committees; helped raise money for local causes; took on leadership roles; and recruited new members by telling them they too could make a difference in the town we love.
But, as you are no doubt aware, Rotary isn’t a one-way street; you get back far more than you give. My meager investment afforded me great personal satisfaction; a deeper feeling of belonging; and greater knowledge of our local community—but it al-so gave me something I wasn’t expecting: a humble awareness of Rotary’s magnanimous international impact. I learned that, not only has The Rotary Foundation made polio an all but distant nightmare, but it has fought other diseases; provided clean water; saved mothers and children from poverty; supported education; and promoted peace.
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.
|
|
If a picture is worth a thousand words, look at the rapt attention of the men in David’s 2017 Teacher Training Workshop; or the joyous look on the children’s faces inspired by a visit from Rotarian DJIBO Hamani in a rural school. Among the thousand words these pictures inspire, is the reminder that local and international service are not mutually exclusive, and that winning can be as simple as twinning.
|
|
Read more...
|
|
|
| Posted by Shellie Peterson on Jun 27, 2021 |
 Incoming Rotary International President Shekhar Mehta urged members to become more involved in service projects, saying that caring for and serving others is the best way to live because it changes not only other people’s lives, but also our own. Mehta, a member of the Rotary Club of Calcutta-Mahanagar, West Bengal, India, revealed the 2021-22 presidential theme, Serve to Change Lives, to incoming district governors on 1 February during the Rotary International Assembly. The assembly, a yearly training event for district governors-elect, was originally set to take place in Orlando, Florida, USA, but was held virtually because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Mehta spoke about how participating in service projects through Rotary changed him as a person and made him empathize more with the needs of others. Soon after joining his club, he helped carry out projects that benefited rural communities in India. Some of the poor conditions he saw in those communities strengthened his commitment to service. “I truly understood the plight of my brethren,” he said. Mehta participated in initiatives that brought artificial limbs to children, clean water and sanitation to homes, and better health care facilities to communities. “Rotary kindled the spark within me to look beyond myself and embrace humanity,” he said. “Service became a way of life for me and I, like many others, adopted the guiding philosophy that ‘Service is the rent I pay for the space I occupy on this earth, and I want to be a good tenant of this earth.’” |
|
Mehta spoke about how participating in service projects through Rotary changed him as a person and made him empathize more with the needs of others. Soon after joining his club, he helped carry out projects that benefited rural communities in India. Some of the poor conditions he saw in those communities strengthened his commitment to service. “I truly understood the plight of my brethren,” he said. Mehta participated in initiatives that brought artificial limbs to children, clean water and sanitation to homes, and better health care facilities to communities. Mehta encouraged district governors-elect to lead by example during their term and inspire Rotary and Rotaract members to participate in projects that have measurable and sustainable impacts. He’s asking each club to conduct a Rotary Day of Service. “At the end of your term as district governor, you should feel that because of your leadership, because of your inspiration to Rotarians and Rotaractors, the world has changed for the better because of the service done by them during the year,” he said. Focusing on diversity, membershipFor the 2021-22 Rotary year, Mehta wants members to focus their efforts on empowering girls and ensuring their access to education, resources, services, and opportunities so that future generations of women leaders will have the tools they need to succeed. Mehta asked members to use Rotary’s belief that diversity, equity, and inclusion is critical in all we do as a compass to guide this work. Rotary kindled the spark within me to look beyond myself and embrace humanity. Shekhar Mehta
Rotary International President-elect
“There are many issues that girls face in different parts of the world, and you as leaders will ensure that we try and mitigate the disadvantage of the girl that they may have,” he said. To be able to do more through service, Rotary needs to increase membership, Mehta said. Membership has hovered around 1.2 million for the past two decades. He challenged the incoming governors to be catalysts in their districts to help increase membership to 1.3 million by 1 July 2022. Mehta’s Each One, Bring One initiative asks every member to bring one person to join Rotary within the next 17 months. Increasing membership while also continuing our commitment to eradicating polio, fighting COVID-19, and serving our communities is an ambitious goal. “And that should excite you,” Mehta said. “Rotarians love challenges.”
|
|
Read more...
|
|
|
|
|
.jpg)
.png)
