Steak Sale: The bad news is that we had uncooked steaks left over from the Steak Feed. The good news is those steaks are now available for purchase! Packs of two choice steaks from Columbia Empire Farms are available for $20 per pack. Just like the Steak Feed, proceeds benefit the Rotary Youth Exchange program.

Orders can be emailed to Janet Peters, rjlc4peters@msn.com, and are due by Monday June 27. Steak pickup is tentatively scheduled for Friday, July 1, 4-5:30 p.m., at Jeff Duyck’s warehouse on 19th Avenue between Main and Ash streets.

Concours d’Elegance Elk Cove Vineyard Concert: The Concours d’Elegance weekend begins this year with our inaugural concert event, “The Celebration of our Senses,” taking place in the amphitheater at Elk Cove Vineyard on Friday, July 15.

The concert features Bossa PDX- Brazilian Jazz as the entertainment, a three-course gourmet dinner featuring Kama’Aina hawaiian food, Sho Restaurant sushi plate and farm-to-table local salad with Elk Cove wine-braised beef bruschetta from the Wilderness Hunters Chefs. There will also be tastings of Elk Cove wine and SakeOne sake, free parking and great summer fun!

Tickets for all of the above are an all-inclusive package at $90 per person and limited to only 200 people. Additional beverages may be purchased after the tasting tickets are used.

Do not miss what will be the signature wine country concert of the summer at Elk Cove, one of Oregon’s premier pioneer wineries.

Get your tickets here now at forestgroveconcours.org/vineyard-concert and invite your family and friends, they’ll never forget it!

More Concours Update: We are under two months away from the 2022 Concours d’Elegance. Our annual car show, which raises funds for our club’s Scholarship Program, will take place on Sunday, July 17, on the campus of Pacific University. This year’s theme is a celebration of Jaguar. In addition, the show will showcase a salute to British Excellence with feature classes for MG, Triumph and Lotus.

As our club’s primary fundraiser for the year, the Concours is an “all hands on deck” event with all club members expected to volunteer. Volunteer assignments will be available soon.

Volunteers: The Concours needs an army of volunteers to make everything happen. The show’s volunteer sign-up link is now open. If you have friends, family or others who want to volunteer and be part of the event, Click Here.

Registration: Registration for this year’s Concours is now open. Let’s get as many cars out on the show field to help celebrate our return! There is a suggested entry donation of $25 per car. More details on entry classes and the registration link can be found at https://forestgroveconcours.org/enter.

Sponsorships: Tim Pearson has a goal of 100 sponsors for the show. “That’s going to be a stretch but I think it is doable,” Tim said, but he needs the help of club members to make it happen. A copy of the sponsorship flyer is Linked Here. If you have sponsorship questions or a lead, please contact Tim at 503-998-8616 or TimPearsonPC@gmail.com.

For more information on the show, including a full schedule of the weekend’s activities, visit forestgroveconcours.org. For questions, contact show chairman Ryan Garcia at rypgarcia@gmail.com.

Steak Feed – Thank You!: We did it! Thank you to all of you who helped make our 64th annual Rotary Steak Feed a success! Despite the rainy weather, we had a steady line of customers throughout the three hours of the event and a lot of satisfied diners. Initial estimates indicate a gross income of $11,000, part of which benefits our involvement in the Rotary Youth Exchange program, will be available in the coming weeks. If you have not turned in your ticket money or have tickets that did not go used, please turn those in ASAP.

A big thank you to the Steak Feed chair, Geoff Faris, for all of his hard work to make the event run smoothly after a three-year absence. A special thank you as well to the staff at Bon Appétit and Pacific University for their assistance.

You can views photos from the Steak Feed, taken by our own Hector Mendez-Colberg, on our Facebook and Instagram pages.

Trailer Donation: For much of the show’s history, the fence that surrounds the Concours grounds was hauled with a trailer that was specially outfitted for the project by the late Bob Nixon. The Nixon family has agreed to donate the club, providing that this part of the project will be easier for years to come. After the show, the trailer will be used to store the fence posts and fencing material.

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
B Street Cleanup: Tim Orr is working with the Forest Grove Foundation on the coordination of cleanup of a homeless campsite along Gales Creek and B Street (near the recently demolished City of Forest Grove Light & Power building). The cleanup will take place on Saturday, July 9. The group would like to have an additional 10 people to assist with the effort.

If you are interested, please contact Tim at 503-702-5773 or timothyd47@yahoo.com.

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.

St. Anthony’s Parish Blood Drive: Parri Van Dyke has worked with St. Anthony’s Catholic Church and the Red Cross to host a blood drive on Thursday, July 14, from 10-3 p.m., at the church’s parish hall at 1160 Elm Street. Blood supply is still at critical levels and donations are sorely needed. To schedule an appointment, call 1-800-RED CROSS (1-800-733-2767) or Click Here To Schedule On The Red Cross Website.

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 Updates: The latest edition of Rotary District 5100 video updates were made available last in the district’s “That’s My Jam” newsletter. If you did not receive the newsletter in your email box, here are links to the videos that provide updates on what is happening all around the district.

District Governor Jim Boyle’s Update
District Governor Nominee Renee Brouse’s Update
PolioPlus Committee Update
REEL Update
Vocational Service Committee Update
Youth Exchange Committee Update

Around Rotary International
Five Interesting People I Met At The 2022 Rotary Convention (by Jeris Gaston, Rotary Club of Birmingham, Alabama): A Rotary convention is a time to reflect upon the past year, look forward to the year ahead, and connect with friends, old and new, from around the globe. But it’s also a celebration of all things Rotary. The people gathered together are what make this event special. Being together again, in person, after a two-year hiatus made the 2022 Rotary International Convention in Houston even more sweet. A big part of convention is meeting people. So in that spirit, I want to introduce you to five interesting Rotarians I met in Houston:

1. While visiting the Rotaract Preconvention, I met Philip Flindt, a Rotaractor from Denmark who will begin serving as a Rotary Public Imagine Coordinator in a few short weeks. Notably, he will be the first Rotaractor to serve in that capacity. Be on the lookout for great things from Philip!

2. The House of Friendship is always a great place to meet new people, and this year was no exception. While working my club’s booth promoting our 2023 Rotary Peace Conference in Birmingham, Alabama (come join us!) I visited with Rotarian Scott Nelson from Michigan, who shared his passion for a vegan diet and the link between social harmony and health. I certainly thought twice before ordering dinner that evening!

3. While doing some light shopping in the House of Friendship, I met Sybella Namigadde, a friendly vendor selling beautiful Ugandan clothing. She is an accountant for a living but is hard at work building her clothing business. Her mother is a Rotarian, and after such a positive experience in Houston, she is now considering joining Rotary herself!

4. I met Marissa Multari, past president of the Capital Region Rotary Club in Albany, New York, during a breakout session. Breakout sessions are a fantastic way to learn nuggets of knowledge to take back to your club and district. While attending the session “Family, Career & Rotary, she bravely stepped in to help the leaders navigate the online session chat and she did a fantastic job. It was a notable ‘service above self’ moment!

5. Last but certainly not least, I had a chance to meet President-Elect Jennifer Jones! She took time to meet and chat with Rotarians and Rotaractors from several districts during an evening reception. Her vision for Rotary is inspiring and we are all thrilled to ‘Imagine Rotary’ together in the upcoming year!

This year’s convention was one for the record books. If you weren’t able to make it, go ahead and register now for Melbourne 2023. You never know the interesting people you will meet, and we hope to see you there!

About the author: Jeris Gaston is a former Rotaractor and current member of the Rotary Club of Birmingham, Alabama, USA in District 6860. She serves as Vice-Chair of the RI Membership Committee and will soon begin serving as an Assistant Rotary Coordinator for Zone 30.

Last Week’s Program: End Of The Year Celebration
For the first time in three years, our club was able to hold an in-person End of the Year Celebration dinner. Over 35 Rotarians met at Prime Time on Wednesday night to not only enjoy fellowship but to also celebrate the past three years of our club.

President Bryce Baker’s remarks from the event follow below. Bryce illustrates that not only do we have a lot to celebrate from the last year but from the last three as we navigated through the COVID-19 pandemic.

Someone told me that one of the hardest parts of this pandemic has been how we are continuously being asked to adapt and be resilient to change. That sure gets hard after a while, to keep finding that inner resilience within ourselves and rise to the occasion over and over again. There is a lot that we’ve had to give up and change over these last two years in our personal lives, our work lives – in every aspect of our lives – to keep moving forward in a “new normal” that still sometimes feels very unfamiliar.

A lot of groups like ours ceased meeting because of COVID. People grew apart during quarantine and even when they emerged again some of those connections were never restored.

But that was not the case with this group.

So even though this is technically a “President’s Celebration,” what I really want to celebrate is the resiliency of this group. I want to celebrate this group for never losing sight of the importance of service, even amid this pandemic that created a lot of fear, confusion and uncertainty. With that, I’d like to reflect on this past year and highlight all of the ways that we, as a Rotary Club, continued to tap into our inner resiliency and show up for each other and this community – even if we could only do it over Zoom.

• March 11, 2020 was our last in-person meeting before COVID shutdowns. Meetings were canceled indefinitely, but our phone tree was activated quickly, and we were back to meeting regularly online just three weeks later.

Our meetings started off as member check-ins to make sure we were all doing okay and to see how we could support one another, and to brainstorm how we could be of service through COVID-19 pandemic. Once we figured that out, we got right to work.

• We organized meals for first responders, continued working on the community garden and on roadside clean-ups, transitioned to steak sales instead of a steak feed and supported the FGHS food pantry with grant funds, food donations and hygiene supplies. We continued our scholarship awards even without the Concours d’Elegance. We even continued with golf tournaments as we were able. We assembled desks for Cornelius Elementary, launched a Dues Assistance Program to help with member retention and held a joint virtual meeting with the Camarillo, California club to learn about the Mars Curiosity rover. We adapted to the times — and we did so quickly and from our hearts.

• Hope for the Holidays continued to bring light to our community during the holiday season. We raised $5,000 for new equipment at Anna & Abby’s Play Yard. We adapted the Concours to a smaller event, “Classics on Main,” and it was a great success. Leadership participated in a visioning effort to guide us for the next four years.

• Once we felt safe to do so, we brought the club back together for in-person meetings. Then (and here’s that resiliency thing again), we took them back to Zoom (thank you Delta), then in-person again.

• In August 2021 we held our golf tournament, dined together at the Van Dykes for our combination satellite/noon meeting and then went back online September 1st with another COVID surge. It wasn’t until October 27, 2021 that we finally returned to Pacific University after 595 days away.

• We’ve done little things — like taking dues payments online — to big things, like starting our new cause-based satellite club focused on our Gardens of Hope international project. We’re growing our relationship with Habitat for Humanity with two service projects this year. We raised $2,500 to support relief efforts in Ukraine. The crab feed returned for arguably its best occurrence ever and the Steak Feed brought the town together for the first time in two years.

That brings us to today, our first in-person, year-end celebration since 2019. In spite of everything this year we contributed over 150 volunteer hours and exceeded our foundation and polio plus fundraising goals. We’ve added 11 new members to our roster.

We never lost sight of the importance of taking care of one another and our community. Amid sickness, kids home from school who were sad to be missing their friends and sports and normal lives, amid holidays where we couldn’t gather with our families as many of us had hoped to, we never allowed these very real stresses to keep us from being of service. In fact, we learned that being of service was one of the best ways to push through the hard times.

So it’s with deep, heartfelt gratitude that I thank you for being a member of our club and for your commitment to support our local and global community — even when we each had a million valid excuses for why we couldn’t show up, couldn’t commit or couldn’t give back. Instead, we found our inner resiliency time and time again and saw that being of service to one another is how we get through the hard times with grace. That is what you have taught me this past year and it has been an honor being your president.

So what’s next? In short, we still need your help and service. Our work is never done. Our most important event of the whole year is less than a month away and we absolutely need all hands on deck for July 15-17 to get Janet’s year off to a strong start.

There is so much good work we can do together and we have proven over the last two years that nothing can prevent us from doing it. This is the place to give back and make a difference. Let’s keep leaning on each other and being of service so that we can continue to support and strengthen this community that we’re so lucky to be able to call home. Thank you!

Club Calendar
Wed., June 29: Weekly Meeting, Noon
Boxer Pause Room, University Center, Pacific University
Program: Ryan Garcia, Concours d’Elegance

Wed., July 6: Weekly Meeting, Noon
Boxer Pause Room, University Center, Pacific University
Program: To Be Announced

Wed., July 13: Weekly Meeting, Noon
Boxer Pause Room, University Center, Pacific University
Program: To Be Announced

Thurs., July 14: Executive Board Meeting, 7 p.m.
Via Zoom

Sun., July 17: Concours d’Elegance
Pacific University Campus