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

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.

Here is a brief recap of the major award winners provided by Rotarian John Schrag.

After a two-year break, the Forest Grove Concours d’Elegance returned to the Pacific University campus on July 17.

“It’s great to be back,” said Phil Hutchinson, who has been showing off his 1909 Pope Harford on the Pacific University campus for more than two decades. The car, which was purchased new by his great-grandfather, always attracts a crowd, and this year was no different.

This year’s show, the first since the outbreak of COVID-19 in 2020, featured nearly 300 entries, coming from as far away as Petaluma, California and Bainbridge Island, Washington.

Top honors went to a 1935 Mercedes-Benz 500k, presented by Jim Friswold of Tigard. This was the first time the car was on display in Forest Grove and it took home the Best in Show award, sponsored by Barrett-Auction Auction Company. The car also took home the Best Classic Car award, sponsored by Jaguar Land Rover Portland.

The Best Non-Classic Car award, presented by Washington Trust Bank, went to David B. Smith of Medina, Washington, for his 1956 Maserati A6G 2000 Zagato.

Other notable award winners included:

• A 1914 Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost Landaulet, brought by Tom Cleary of Portland, which won the Toast of the Concours Cup, sponsored by Doherty Ford.

• 1954 Jaguar D-Type, brought by Allan Law of Petaluma, California, which won the Monte Shelton Cup

• A 1961 Chevrolet Impala, displayed by Nathaniel La Barre of Hillsboro, which received the Pacific University President’s Award

• A 1966 Chevrolet Corvette Coupe, brought by Doug Meyer of Bend, which won the Arnold N. Franks Memorial Sweepstakes Award, sponsored by the Forest Grove Rotary Club

The all-volunteer show, produced by the Rotary Club of Forest Grove since 1973, is the largest and longest-running Concours d’Elegance in the Pacific Northwest.

Like many event organizers, the club’s Concours committee canceled the in-person 2020 show, opting for a virtual Concours, instead. Last July, they hosted a much smaller “Classics on Main.”

“We had to make the difficult decision to postpone the 48th show in both 2020 and 2021,” says Ryan Garcia, a club member who chaired this year’s Concours steering committee. “Everyone I’ve talked to, from volunteers to car owners, was ecstatic to welcome the public back for the 2022 show.”

The event is the service organization’s largest annual fundraiser, with net proceeds divided equally among the club’s scholarship program and community service projects. Thanks to the Concours d’Elegance, the Rotary Club of Forest Grove has returned more than $1 million to the community.

The Concours committee was happy to welcome Jaguar Land Rover Portland as its 2022 presenting sponsor. Supporting sponsors included Sports Car Market magazine, Chubb, Bonham’s, Barrett-Jackson, Doherty Ford, Hagerty, Elk Cove Vineyards, Cars Yeah, and Dufault, Smith & Meeuwsen.

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.

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 of the requirements for hosting, please contact Youth Exchange Committee chair Melinda Fischer.

Steak Feed & Steak Sales: 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.

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.

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, 1336 Rosearden Drive, Forest Grove. More details on this event will be available soon. We will not have a noon meeting on September 7.

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 Committees – Help Wanted: Are you interested in getting more involved with Rotary at the district level? The following District 5100 committees are looking for members. If you have interest or want more information, click on the names of the committee chairs to contact them via email.

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.

Around Rotary International
Rotary Responds – Support For Ukraine: The Rotary Foundation has raised more than $15 million in contributions that are already helping provide people in Ukraine with essential items such as water, food, shelter, medicine, and clothing. Donations made to the Disaster Response Fund after 30 April will be available to all communities around the world that need assistance recovering from disasters.

Rotary members and other volunteers pack donated supplies at a rented warehouse in Zamosc, Poland, a major hub for refugees and a centralized coordination location for aid from clubs in Europe.

A Family That Stands By You
Soon after Russia invaded Ukraine, Iryna Bushmina fled her home in Kyiv and journeyed to Vienna, Austria, staying with Rotary members along the way. Their generosity inspired Bushmina, a member of the Rotaract Club of Kyiv-City, to organize a larger-scale relief effort — and now, she works with Rotaract Europe to find shelter for thousands of refugees through a website called United for Peace.

“I used to just say that Rotary International is a big family. Now I really believe it,” Bushmina says. “And I am convinced that this is a family that will stand by you.”

Music For Peace
Olena Bondarenko Hiraishi grew up in the city of Dnipro in eastern Ukraine. Her father is Ukrainian, and her mother is Russian. At the age of 21, she moved to Hiroshima, Japan, where she met her husband, Masashi, a member of the Rotary Club of Hiroshima Southwest. When the war against Ukraine broke out, Satoshi Saginaw, then governor of District 2710, invited her to talk with the Hiroshima Southwest club. Bondarenko Hiraishi connected the Japanese club with Rotary leaders in Ukraine to assist in the relief work.

Her youngest son, who studies the violin, also joined the effort — through music. He and a pianist friend performed at a series of chamber music concerts in the spring, and the proceeds have gone to support Ukrainians.

“I think music is a universal language that can be understood by people from any country,” she says. “My son says he will play it with the utmost prayer for peace.”

Lessons From A Hurricane Hot Spot
“Maria, Dorian, Michael…” Padraic E. “Pat” Mulvihill is rattling off a list of the hurricanes he’s responded to as a disaster relief coordinator for his Rotary district (6970) in northeast Florida. The storm-tested logistics networks he has helped set up are what have made Rotary members in the Jacksonville, Florida, area so effective at responding to the war against Ukraine, including helping find housing for around 140 refugees.

“We have the institutional knowledge already in place and the infrastructure,” explains Mulvihill, a semiretired business executive who has served as an infantry officer, paratrooper, and Green Beret in the U.S. Army Reserve.

His district’s Rotary clubs have raised more than $95,000 for Ukraine relief efforts. They have channeled food, protective equipment, and EMT supplies to Ukraine. They even organized a day at the Jacksonville Zoo for the children of refugee families.

The war in Ukraine brought the Rotary community even closer together. During this difficult time, you can rely on Rotary. We are a big family.

Rotary Clubs Unite Across Continents
Rotary members in North America, South America, and Europe have collaborated with a U.S.-based association of Ukrainian health care workers and used their connections to collect and ship more than 350 tons of critical medical supplies to Ukraine.

As of May, five cargo planes packed with medical supplies such as tourniquets, blood-clotting gauze, negative pressure wound therapy equipment, and medications have been flown from Chicago to Europe, where members have helped deliver them to Ukraine.

“It is Rotary doing what Rotary does best. It networks, pulls people together, and gets the job done,” says RI Director Pat Merryweather-Arges, who has helped coordinate the shipments.

North American and Argentine Rotary clubs combined their resources to purchase medical supplies and worked with pharmaceutical companies and medical equipment manufacturers to arrange donations. For example, a hospital in Peoria, Illinois, sent an ambulance and networked with others to have seven ambulances shipped to Ukraine.

Supplies streamed into a warehouse operated by the Ukrainian Medical Association of North America near Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport. Rotary clubs in Nebraska, Wisconsin, and Iowa collected supplies to ship to the warehouse.

“It’s amazing what one Rotarian talking to another Rotarian can accomplish,” says Marga Hewko, immediate past president of the Rotary Club of Chicago. Read More

Last Week’s Program: Lori Hubler, Nonstop Wellness

Click Here To Watch The Full Program

Last week, we were joined via Zoom by Lori Hubler of Nonstop Wellness, who presented on her company’s innovative approach of providing healthcare services to companies.

Founded in 2012, Nonstop Wellness has a goal of providing access to high-quality, affordable healthcare.

Lori explained that the COVID pandemic and current employment crisis has taught the business world that employer-sponsored healthcare is not just total benefits, employee retention or organizational growth. Nonstop’s mission is to support organization growth and sustainability by providing high-quality, affordable employer-sponsored healthcare for organizations that serve communities.

Nonstop Wellness does this through a three-pronged approach designed to make up-front costs lower for employees.

For more details, we encourage you to watch the video of the presentation, linked above. For more information, you can also visit nonstopwellness.com.

Club Calendar
Wed., July 27: Weekly Meeting, Noon
Boxer Pause Room, University Center, Pacific University
Program: Club Assembly

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