If you did not make it to our last Rotary Club of Forest Grove meeting, here is what you missed…

This Week – At Forest Grove UCC: During the month of January, our club will continue to meet for our Wednesday weekly meetings at the Forest Grove United Church of Christ, 2023 College Way. Join us as we hear from Natalie Olivier about the Cornelius 2045 Plan.

Order Your Lunches In Advance: If you wish to receive lunch at meetings, confirmation for lunch orders must be received by secretary Janet Peters by the Saturday before each week’s meeting. A sign-up sheet will be available at weekly meetings or you can RSVP to Janet via email.

Thank You Lucas & Welcome Andrea: We want to give a big thank you to our president-elect, Lucas Welliver, who had completed a great year as the club’s program chair. Thank you, Lucas, for the great programs and meetings that you brought to you club. We wish you all of the best as you take the next six months to prepare for your year as club president.

At the same time, we give a big 2024 welcome to president-elect nominee Andrea Stewart who steps in for her year as program chair. We look forward to your great ideas and thank you for your continued service of the club. If you have a program idea or a topic that you think would be of interest to the club, please let Andrea know.

Crab Feed Committee: Our Crab Feed Committee, chaired by Julia Kollar, is starting to meet to plan this spring’s event. If you are interested in being involved in the planning and execution of this year event, please contact Julia.

The Crab Feed is a social event designed to be a celebration for the club and usually takes place in March. It is also when our club honors its newest Paul Harris Fellows and those who have advanced in Paul Harris Fellow recognition.

Hope For The Holidays: Thank you to all of our Rotarians and Rotary family who helped make our annual Hope For The Holidays project another great success! We held our food distribution on Monday, Dec. 20 at Forest Grove High School and served 100 families, including 280 adults and 130 children.

The food for the project is being covered by $2,500 from the club and $2,500 from a District 5100 Matching Grant. Money from wreath sales and other donations will be used to purchase and provide household items, like toilet paper and laundry detergent, that are normally not available at the Food Pantry.

For more details on the project, check out this story published in the Forest Grove News-Times on Tuesday, Dec. 19.

Thank you to all of the Rotarians that worked so hard to bring this project together, especially Janet & Rus Peters and Parri Van Dyke.

Concours d’Elegance Committee: The Concours d’Elegance Committee is starting the planning for our 50th show on July 21, 2024. If interested in getting further involved with the Concours, the steering committee is always looking for volunteers to prepare for the show throughout the year. For more information, contact Tom Raabe at 503-704-1200 or rotarytomr@gmail.com or Geoff Johnston at 503-939-7868 or gamsma@comcast.net.

The next meeting of the Concours Committee will be on Wednesday, Jan. 10 via Zoom at 7 p.m. Please contact Tom Raabe for the Zoom link.

A Note About PMail: When club leadership sends out emails through the DacDB Pmail system (these will usually have ROTARY in the subject line), these are mass emails sent for the purpose of informing the whole club of information. While it may look like the email is addressed specifically to you, it is not. Please keep this in mind when choosing to reply to an email.

The PMail system is the same system we use to send the Rototeller out each week. This means that if you are opting-out of receiving club emails, you will not receive the weekly newsletter either.

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 (over 100 videos to date) are archived on our club’s YouTube page. Visit https://bit.ly/fgrotaryprograms.

Service Opportunities For Club Members
Do You Know Of Service Opportunities?: Are you aware of service opportunities in our area that our members might be interested in? We can advertise those here! This space is not limited to club-sponsored activities but to any service opportunity in the community. To promote the service activity, please send a detailed description of the project, the date and time, contact information and a link to register to Rototeller editor Blake Timm, blakertimm@gmail.com.

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 Mondays from 4-5:30 p.m. The pantry is located along Nichols Lane between the football field and the Basinski Center. Click Here for more information on the FGHS Food Pantry and on other resources for those experiencing food insecurity.

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.

Around District 5100
A Mental Health Moment (By Sally Gradin LCSW, President-Elect, Tigard Breakfast Rotary Club & Co-Coordinator, District 5100 Mental Health Impact Committee): This time of year brings many blessings of extra socials, neighborhood lights, and contemplation of new life. This time of the year, I’m also headed to my breakfast club at o’dark-30. Whether night or day, much of life doesn’t have the cheer of sun shining on it right now, and it can be a struggle.

Whether experiencing pronounced Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) or simply feeling that shorter daylight hours are making life feel just a little weightier, there are things you can do to confront “the Big Dark.” 

For a fuller discussion, take a look at this article from the University of Washington, “How to Boost Your Mood During the Big Dark” (McKenna Princing).

Among their suggestions are the following:

• Get the right amount of sleep
• Ensure good quality sleep (eg, consistent bed and wake times; abstaining from caffeine, alcohol, stress-inducing shows and screens before bedtime; using bed for sleep and sex only – no doom scrolling! – and dimming lights in the evening)
• Light therapy (including getting outside more or introducing certain lights indoors)
• Exercise
• Staying connected with people
• Try medication from your doctor if actions like those above don’t help, or talk with a therapist.

Sometimes the middle of winter can feel overwhelming, but with small steps like those above, we can take back control of our mood from the Big Dark.

Note: If experiencing thoughts of harming yourself, do not wait to find a therapist with an opening. Dial 988, the National Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, or go to your local emergency room.

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

Last Week’s Program: Fareeha Nayebare, Strive High School Literacy Project
We opened 2024 with a presentation from our Rotary Youth Exchange inbound student from Uganda, Fareeha Nayebare. She presented on an adopt-a-school project that the club that she is affiliated in Uganda, the Rotary Club of Kampala Wandwgeya, is pursing in their city. Fareeha would love to see our club partner with her home club on funding to further develop the project.

The Strive High School Literacy Project was initiated by the Rotary Club of Kampala Wandwgeya in 2018-19. A community school located in the ghettoes of Kawaala, Kasubi, a suburb or Kampala city, the goal of the program is the allow students to better achieve literacy and quality education.

The club adopted a structured program with the acronym of TEACH to define the program:

Teacher Support
E-Learning
Adult Literacy
Child Development
Happy School

The goals for TEACH include re-training and re-tooling school teachers; to facilitate each student receiving the best possible e-learning facilities; to provide schools for adult literacy to enable people to live with honor; to see that each students gets to see, hear, read and use high-class learning material for better grades; to ensure that every child in the community is able to go to school and to turn the school in to a “Happy School.”

The TEACH program has a number of focus areas designed to help the school and its students achieve. Those focus areas include school rehabilitation, clean water, incinerator/smart toilet construction, teachers/student-teaching programs, equipping the school (computers, chairs, furniture, etc.), introduction of board games and other games, the introduction of a school band and development of vocational skills.

For more information, View The Full Presentation.

Club Calendar
Wed., Jan. 10: Weekly Meeting, Noon
Forest Grove United Church of Christ, 2032 College Way
Program: Natalie Olivier, Cornelius 2045 Community Conversation

Wed., Jan. 10: Concours Committee, 7 p.m.
via Zoom

Thurs., Jan. 11: Executive Board Meeting, 7 p.m.
via Zoom

Wed., Jan. 17: Weekly Meeting, Noon
Forest Grove United Church of Christ, 2032 College Way
Program: Club Assembly/Youth Citizen of the Month Presentation

Thurs., Jan. 18: Board Meeting, 7 a.m.
via Zoom

Wed., Jan. 24: Weekly Meeting, Noon
Forest Grove United Church of Christ, 2032 College Way
Program: Doug Marshall, Home For The Homeless Foundation