If you didn’t make it to our last Rotary Club of Forest Grove meeting, here’s what you missed…

Youth Exchange – Host Family Needed: For the first time since 2020, we will have an inbound Rotary Youth Exchange student from Ecuador. The Youth Exchange Committee is still in need of a host family to take on part of the duty of hosting our student during the upcoming year. If your family has interest, and for information on the requirements for hosting, please contact Youth Exchange Committee chair Melinda Fischer, dancorntopper@aol.com.

New Concours Chair Needed: After this year’s show, Ryan Garcia will stepping aside as Concours chair. Thank you, Ryan, for your incredible dedication to the show through the pandemic and seeing us through to our first live presentation in three years! If you are interested in taking over as committee chair, please contact President Janet Peters or Allen Stephens with the Concours Committee.

Club Treasurer Needed: As Lucas Welliver transitions into his vice president and program chair duties, the club is looking for a new individual who can step in as treasurer. Lucas will be stepping aside as treasurer in January. The treasurer is an officer of both the club and the foundation. If you are interested in the position or have questions, please contact President Janet.

Upcoming Club Events: Mark your calendars for a pair of special club meetings coming up in August and September!

Golf Tournament: The club’s annual golf tournament will take place on Wednesday, Aug. 24, at Sunset Grove Golf Course. The event is guaranteed to be a ton of fun and, depending on how Tim Schauermann sets up the course, a bit of a challenge. If you do not want to play golf, please join the club for lunch and a short meeting at noon. The tournament will tee off around 1 p.m. For more information, contact Tim.

September Potluck: On Wednesday, September 7, we will meet in the evening for a potluck and social at the home of Pete and Parri Van Dyke. More details on this event will be available soon. We will not have a noon meeting on September 7.

Concours d’Elegance – Thank You: A big thank you to all of our club members and volunteers for making the first in-person Forest Grove Concours d’Elegance since 2019 a huge success! We were blessed by great weather, a great field of classic automobiles and great attendance through the gates. Details on the financial impact of this year’s show will be available in the following weeks. Last week, Jim Crisp did report that initial reports on ticket sales were close to $30,000.

A wrap-up meeting to talk about the successes, challenges and growth of the Concours is scheduled for our weekly meeting on Wednesday, Aug. 17.

More information on this year’s Concours is available on the show’s Facebook page or at forestgroveconcours.org.

Steak Feed: This year’s Steak Feed was one of the best ever for the club! Including ticket sales and the sale of raw steaks following the event, the club brought in $7,666! Thank you to everyone who made the event a success and especially to committee chair Geoff Faris.

Steaks For Sale: If you are missing the taste of those great steaks, you are in luck! We still have a few packs of steaks available for purchase at $20 per pack of two steaks. If you are interested, please contact President Janet.

Steak Feed – Blast From The Past: In case you missed it, Friends of Historic Forest Grove posted a pair of photos from the 1972 Rotary Steak Feed on its Facebook page as part of its Throwback Thursday series. The two photos featured then Pacific University president James Miller and John Wood serving up steaks. At the time, the Steak Feed was held at the home of Ray Miller. See The Photos Here

Online Dues Payments: Our club is now equipped to process dues payments online! We can now process credit card or debit card payments for quarterly dues. Information on how to pay online will be included with quarterly billings that will be coming to your mailbox or email inbox.

With the transition to billing with Quickbooks, some members may not have received their quarterly invoice. If you did not, please contact treasurer Lucas Welliver.

Past Programs: Did you miss a meeting or want to go back and check out a program again? Most of our programs since May 2020 are archived on our club’s YouTube page. Visit https://bit.ly/fgrotaryprograms.

Service Opportunities For Club Members
Summer Meals Program: Volunteers are needed to assist with the Forest Grove School District’s Summer Meals program, which runs from June 20 to August 26. Meals are served to kids Monday through Friday from 12 to 12:30 p.m. at a variety of locations, including Rogers Park, Lincoln Park, Bard Park and the Rose Grove Mobile Home Park.

Each site needs three volunteers each day: one that can pick up meals from one of the base kitchens at a local school and two others to help serve the meals. At least one of the volunteers each day needs to have an Oregon food handlers permit. Our own Parri Van Dyke will be assisting at Rogers Park on Tuesday.

If you are interested in volunteering, please contact Kelly Daily at kelly.daily@comcast.net.

FGHS Community Food Pantry: Our club’s support for the Forest Grove High School Food Pantry continues. Thanks to its partnership with the Oregon Food Bank, food donations are still welcome but are of less need at this time. Of need, however, are toiletries and hygiene products as well as household cleaning materials.

The Food Pantry is open on Mondays from 2-4 p.m. The pantry is now open in its new site in the building along Nichols Lane between the football field and the Basinski Center.

For information on the Food Pantry, please contact Brian Burke, bburke@fgsd.k12.or.us. If you wish to make a cash donation to the pantry, Click Here.

Additionally, Rotarian Gwen Hullinger has put together an Amazon wish list of items that can be purchased and donated. Click Here To View That List.

Around District 5100
District 5100 Foundation Update (by Tom Crozier, District Chair): District Grant request forms are now online on the District website and are being accepted for the first round of District Grants for up to $2,500 in matching funds. We expect to receive District Designated Funds from Rotary International in September.

I would like to thank Rotarians of District 5100 for their outstanding donations supporting the work of The Rotary Foundation and Polio Plus this past year. As we finally move out of the COVID pandemic, Rotarians stood up and supported the work of The Rotary Foundation, with the second highest level of giving in our District in the last 5 years. Our per capita giving to the Annual Fund exceeded $230 for the first time in our history.

In District 5100 we are pulling together a Rotary Disaster Response Grant for $25,000 to support relief efforts in Ukraine. There is an excellent article on the RI website on Rotary’s response to the crisis in Ukraine which may be viewed here: Rotary Responds: Support for Ukraine | Rotary International.

We do have a limited number of End Polio Now red tennis shoes, mostly in men’s sizes of 10-1/2 or larger. If you know someone who would like to use them to promote the eradication of polio, they are available for a donation to PolioPlus … please reach out to Tom Crozier.

The Rotary Foundation
Would you like to know what The Rotary Foundation is all about? Perhaps it can be captured in this Paul Harris statement, “When an individual, a sect, a clique, or a nation hates and despises another individual, sect, clique or nation, he or they simply do not know the objects of their hatred. Ignorance is at the bottom of it.”

All our programs such as Vocational Training Teams, scholarships, Global grants and District grants are directed at that ignorance. The Rotary Foundation was started “to do good in the world”, and the result is to reduce the hatred that Paul Harris spoke about. When you give to The Rotary Foundation you work towards a more peaceful world.

Around Rotary International
Polio Update & Call To Action: The Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) has been informed of a case of paralytic polio in an unvaccinated individual in Rockland County, New York, United States.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are coordinating with New York State health authorities on their investigation. Initial sequencing confirmed by CDC indicates that the case is type 2 VDPV.

Any form of poliovirus anywhere is a threat to children everywhere. It is critical that the GPEI Polio Eradication Strategy 2022-2026 is fully resourced and fully implemented everywhere, to ensure a world free of all forms of poliovirus can be achieved.

We are calling on every single Rotary member to take action and be a part of the fight to end polio, helping to raise $50 million per year for polio eradication.

Last Week’s Program: Club Assembly
At last week’s meeting, we held our first club assembly since the COVID-19 pandemic. For those who are new to Rotary, a club assembly is designed to provide club committees time to do their work or to discuss issues and topics that are of importance to the club.

Wednesday’s club assembly was designed to get committees together and start the work for the year to come. We had a number of club members sign up for new committees while others got a better idea of what committees help the club do its work.

For those members who have not signed up for a committee, Amy Tracewell and Janet Peters will be reaching out to see what you are interested in. A full list of committees is attached to this week’s edition of the Rototeller newsletter.

Club Calendar
Wed., Aug. 3: Weekly Meeting, Noon
Boxer Pause Room, University Center, Pacific University
Program: LaNicia Duke, Black Rural Network

Wed., Aug. 10: Weekly Meeting, Noon
Boxer Pause Room, University Center, Pacific University
Program: Jeff Dalin, Mayor of Cornelius

Thurs., Aug. 11: Executive Board Meeting, 7 p.m.
Via Zoom

Wed., Aug. 24: Golf Tournament, Noon
Sunset Grove Golf Course, 41615 NW Osterman Rd., Forest Grove
Club Meeting/Lunch For All Prior To Golf

Wed., Sept. 7: Club Potluck
Home Of Pete & Parri Van Dyke