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

No Meeting This Week: In observance of the Thanksgiving holiday, the club will not meet this Wednesday, Nov. 23. We wish everyone a safe and happy Thanksgiving filled with good food, friends, family and many blessings! We will return to our regular meeting schedule on Wednesday, Nov. 30.

Holiday Meeting Cancellations: Our club will also not meet on Wed, Dec. 21 and Wed., Dec. 28, the two meetings surrounding Christmas. Our last regularly scheduled meeting of 2022 will be on Wednesday, Dec. 14.

December 14 Joint Meeting: We will hold our annual joint meeting with the Forest Grove Daybreak on Wednesday, Dec. 14 at the Forest Grove School District offices. This meeting will include our annual concert with musical groups from Forest Grove High School. We will require a head count in advance for this meeting. More details coming soon.

Memorial Service For Lois Johnston: A memorial service for Lois Johnston, a longtime honorary member of our club, mother of Geoff Johnston and grandmother of Mackenzie Johnston Carey, will take place on Sunday, Dec. 4, 2 p.m., at the Forest Grove United Church of Christ, 2032 College Way (across from the Pacific University campus).

Wreath Deliveries: Thank you to everyone who either purchased wreaths or sold wreaths to friends during our annual wreath fundraiser. The wreath sale netted around $1,000, which will go to aid our community service projects. Wreaths will be delivered on Friday, Nov. 25. If you will not be home for delivery, please let President Janet know and make arrangements for advance payment.

Hope For The Holidays: We are looking forward to continuing our Hope for the Holidays service project this December with a new format. Instead of offering shopping sprees to needy families, we will be partnering with the Forest Grove High School Food Pantry to provide food boxes for a holiday meal. Our distribution event is scheduled for Monday, Dec. 12, 4-5:30 p.m., at the Food Pantry building on the Forest Grove High School campus.

There is a need for committee members to help with the execution of the event. There be work to be prior to the event packing the boxes and preparing them for distribution. Details on when that will take place is coming soon. For more information and to get involved, please contact President Janet or Parri Van Dyke.

Holiday Pledge Cards: Happy Holidays! November is here and along with that comes our annual pledge drive.  President Janet has chosen Hope for the Holidays, Gardens of Hope (our international project), The Rotary Foundation and our Scholarship Fund as the focus for this year.  As you plan your end of the year giving, we hope that you will consider one of these options. A pledge card is available by Clicking Here.

Hope for the Holidays will be a bit different this year. We have partnered with the Forest Grove High School Food Pantry and will be providing 80-90 holiday food boxes for the families that they serve weekly. We have received a $2,500 grant from the district and have matching funds earmarked from our very successful Concours for this project, but your donation would be greatly appreciated.

Gardens of Hope: Our International project in Aguascalientes, Mexico is in its third year. Mike and Claudia Yakos provided an overview of the project on Sept. 28. It is available to view on our YouTube channel. This project has helped impoverished families learn to prepare the soil, provided kits for irrigation and seed and grow their own organic food. There are technical experts who help them get started and see success in this project. The kits and technical support cost about $290 per family for startup.

The produce that they are growing helps provide a more balanced diet for these families.  They started with 40 families in 2021, added a Home for Girls with 8 gardens (this provided fresh produce for the girls and additional produce that was sold to restaurants with the proceeds going to educational and vocational programs for the girls) and an additional 20 more families and 40 new gardens during 2022.   The goal for 2023 is 100 new families and a global grant. Please consider this project in your giving.

The Rotary Foundation: Your gift to The Rotary Foundation funds service projects that change lives both close to home and around the world. Since it was founded more than 100 years ago, the Foundation has spent more than $4 billion on life-changing sustainable projects, improving health, providing quality education, improving the environment and alleviating poverty.

Dollars for Scholars (Scholarship Committee): Our club has been providing scholarships to local high school seniors for many years,  having awarded over $225,000 since recordkeeping began in 2013. The funds for scholarships primarily come from the Concours d’Elegance, but if education is important to you, then this is a great cause to donate to!

Thank you for considering donating to Rotary and our projects!

New Member Orientations: Our club’s next New Member Orientation meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, Dec. 7, 6:30 p.m., at Wauna Credit Union, 3532 Pacific Ave. New members to the club who have not taken part in an orientation should plan on attending this meeting. If you know of someone who might be interested in our club, this is a perfect opportunity to introduce them!

Additional New Member Orientations are scheduled for March 1 and June 1. Watch the Rototeller for times and locations. All Rotarians are welcome to take part. If you know of someone who you believe might be interested in joining us, this is a perfect opportunity to introduce them to our club.

New Treasurer: Lucas Welliver will be stepping aside as club treasurer at the end of December as he transitions to program chair as part of the officer’s rotation. We are happy that Sharon Olmstead has agreed to step into that role beginning in January. Thank you, Sharon, for your continued service to the club!

Rotary Citation: Once again, the Rotary Club of Forest Grove was recognized with the Rotary Citation and also received a certificate recognizing the club for meeting its fundraising goals for the 2021-22 Rotary year. Assistant governor Tom Raabe presented past president Bryce Baker with certificates honoring both accomplishments. Congratulations to Bryce and our club for reaching both milestones.

Concours Update: Last July was our first Concours d’Elegance in three years and it could not have been better. The final net proceeds from the 2022 show was a record of $75,608! This includes gate receipts, advertising receipts and proceeds from the Friday night concert event. The funds will go a long way towards funding our Scholarship Program and our club’s other community outreach projects.

Thank you to all of our club members for helping make the Concours last not only in 2022 but every year! A special thank you to last year’s Concours Committee, which was chaired by Ryan Garcia, for their exceptional work, and to Tim Pearson for his work in securing $38,000 of advertising proceeds and along with $5,000 for a VIP Tent which was secured for the event.

The planning for the 2023 Concours is well underway. To find out more about how you can be involved, please contact one of our four co-chairs for the show: Tom Raabe, Geoff Johnston, Alisa Johnston and Allen Stephens.

Concours Concert Event – Help Wanted: The Concours Committee has given the green light to go ahead with another concert event linked to the annual show. The concert is tentatively scheduled for Friday, July 14 with the Concours taking place on Sunday, July 16. If you are interested in helping plan and execute the concert event, please contact Court Carrier at 971-404-7864 or ccarrieriv@gmail.com.

Steak Feed: In addition to our proceeds from the Concours, our annual Steak Feed brought in a net profit of $7,457! Thank you again to all of our club members for their work in making this a great community event and to Geoff Faris for his longtime service as the chair.

Caterers For Future Meetings: President Janet is looking for one to two more members to serve with herself, Howard Sullivan and Court Carrier in identifying local caterers that could serve the club at future meetings. We will have a number of meetings coming up where we will meet at the Forest Grove School District offices and will need catering for those meetings. If you would like to assist, please let President Janet know.

ShelterBox HERO Club: We have once again been recognized as a bronze ShelterBox HERO Club, recognized for a continual gift to the organization of $1,000 per year. The Rotary Club of Forest Grove has been ShelterBox HERO Club since 2018.

ShelterBox is an international relief organization that began as a Rotary centennial project in England. The organization utilizes the resources and connections of Rotary to help bring shelter and disaster relief supplies to those who are suffering from the effects of natural and man-made disasters. To learn more about ShelterBox, Click Here or speak with our club’s ShelterBox ambassadors, Jeannine Murrell and Pamelajean Myers.

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
Holiday In The Grove: The City Club of Forest Grove has approached our club asking if we might be willing to conduct an activity as part of the annual Holiday in the Grove celebration on Saturday, Dec. 3. If you are interested in leading this for the club, please let President Janet know.

There are also volunteer opportunities that will be available both during the daytime event and the Holiday Light Parade that evening. You can up for a volunteer shift by Clicking Here.

Additionally, President Janet is gauging if there is interest in the club putting a float in this year’s Holiday Light Parade. If you are interested in spearheading this for the club, please let her know.

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 4-6 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 Committees – It’s Not Too Late!: A number of district-wide committees are looking for members. If you are interested, you can find contact information for the committee chairs in the latest District 5100 newsletter (link below).

Vocational Service – Lal Bhatia, Chair
Working to promote the awareness and opportunity to advance our vocations as an opportunity to provide service to our communities.

Public Image – Diane Noriega, Chair
Working to promote Rotary through our club projects and communications with the general public and with Rotarians within District 5100.

Membership – Dennis Long and Julie Fugate, co-Chairs
Focusing on finding ways to attract new members, but primary emphasis this year is to engage our existing members to retain them as members by finding their interests and focus.

Grow Rotary – Marcia Wimmer, Chair
Growing membership will be accomplished by identifying opportunities for new clubs and to add Satellite clubs to existing clubs to provide additional opportunities to participate.

District 5100 Newsletter: Click Here To View The Monthly District 5100 Newsletter

Around Rotary International
How Rotary Has Responded To The Ukraine Crisis: At Rotary, we are deeply concerned by the escalating loss of life and humanitarian hardship caused by the war in Ukraine. We’re using our deep networks and decades of experience to take swift action in the region.

Find out more about what Rotary is doing and how you can support relief efforts.

How We Are Taking Action
Your donations at work
All donations to The Rotary Foundation’s Disaster Response Fund from 3 March to 30 April 2022 were prioritized for use providing humanitarian aid to regions that are supporting Ukrainian refugees or other victims of the war.

Thanks to the generosity of donors around the world, we raised more than $15 million that funded over 400 grants that provided essential support to people impacted by the war in Ukraine.

Contact information and how to support local club and district-led efforts
Many clubs and districts have organized local humanitarian response initiatives in Ukraine and the surrounding region. Find out how to engage with Rotary clubs and districts, find contacts for hosting refugees, and more local efforts. You can directly support these local projects.

Download a list of relief efforts and relevant Rotary contact information (PDF)

District 2232 (Ukraine) formed a committee to help victims of the war in Ukraine. They identified urgent medical supplies to help injured civilians. Download the list of needed medical supplies (PDF).

Learn how Rotary is responding
Rotary and Rotaract clubs in Europe and around the world are working with members nearby to provide information, transportation, medical equipment, and shelter for refugees. Find out what clubs are doing

Last Week’s Program: Raziah Roushan, Tualatin Valley Creates

Click Here To Watch The Complete Program

At last week’s meeting, we learned about Tualatin Valley Creates from the organization’s executive director, Raziah Roushan.

Organized 20 years ago, Tualatin Valley Creates serves all of Washington County. An independent non-profit organization, TVC is designed to drive the development of inclusive, resilient and creative communities through art. They hope to amplify small businesses through Washington County through promoting arts activities.

Its website, tvcreates.org,  is a communications hub designed to share local arts activities, cultural news and resources from throughout the county. There are weekly e-newsletters that collects content out of the calendar and sends it each Tuesday. There is also a monthly newsletter sharing resources and news from artists and creatives.

The Explore! Page provides numerous resources for creatives, including calls for artists, funding and employment opportunities and resources for youth in the arts. Since 2020, TVC has an art directory that provides a county-wide listing of artists, organizations and arts service providers.

Tualatin Valley Creates conducts monthly networking events for the arts. It is a chance to get to know local artists, local organizations and ArtPass business members. The organization also provides an Arts & Culture Leadership Incubator, a free program that provides multi-workshop intensive to help develop business leaders within the arts. It is geared towards mid-career artists and arts leaders from traditionally underrepresented communities.

Tualatin Valley Creates helps provide administration for public arts projects, including the Tigard Outdoor Museum, the Musical benches Public Art Collection, etc. TVC also puts on the annual La Strada dei Pastelli Chalk Art Festival in Hillsboro, a two-day signature event featuring various artistic modalities, food and hands-on activities.

One way to get involved is to become an ArtPass Business Partner. It is $25 per year and you can benefit from TVC’s marketing and reach and provide access to new customers. Forest Grove businesses include A Framer’s Touch, Gann Bros. Printing, Green Heron Arts and Ridgewalker Brewing. There are 29 total businesses in the program.

Club Calendar
Wed., Nov. 23: No Meeting – Happy Thanksgiving!

Fri., Nov. 25: Wreath Sale Deliveries By President Janet

Wed., Nov. 30: Weekly Meeting, Noon
Boxer Pause Room, University Center, Pacific University
Program: Michael Yakos, Rotary Foundation

Wed., Dec. 7: Weekly Meeting, Noon
Boxer Pause Room, University Center, Pacific University
Program: Willow Oelke, Hope Squared

Wed., Dec. 7: New Member Orientation, 6:30 p.m.
Wauna Credit Union, 3532 Pacific Ave.