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

This Week – No Meeting: We hope everyone has a happy Spring Break! We will not have a meeting this week. With next week’s Crab Feed, our next regular meeting will be at Forest Grove School District Offices on Wednesday, Apr. 10.

Crab Feed: Our annual Crab Feed social event is coming up on Wednesday, Apr. 3 at the Forest Grove Senior & Community Center. The social hour will take place at 5:30 p.m., with dinner commencing at 6:30 p.m. Join us for an evening of fellowship and recognition of our Paul Harris Fellows. This will be an evening event and there will be no noon meeting that day. This year’s meal will include a full half-pound of fresh, shelled crab meat per person!

Tickets for the Crab Feed can be ordered now and must be purchased by noon on Monday, Apr. 1. Prices for Crab Feed tickets, and the appropriate links for ordering, are as follows:

Regular Crab Feed Ticket – $45 per person: https://bit.ly/3IcbXOC
Vegetarian Or Children’s Meal – $25 per person: https://bit.ly/3wwZRNA
One Pound Crab Meat To Go – $35 per pound: https://bit.ly/3SWpi2s
Two Pack Of Steaks To Go – $20 per pack: https://bit.ly/3T9nncd
Red/White Wine To Go – $10 per bottle: https://bit.ly/3TeqpuP

If you are interested in being involved in the planning and execution of this year’s event, please contact Julia Kollar.

Silent Auction At The Crab Feed: Thank you to everyone who has contributed items for our annual silent auction at the Crab Feed. Proceeds from the silent auction will benefit The Rotary Foundation. For those who contributed items, you can bring them to the Senior Center on the night of the event.

RYLA Applications Now Open: Our club is now accepting nominations and applications for District 5100 RYLA, which takes place July 13-19 at the Menucha Retreat & Conference Center in the Columbia River Gorge. Open to individuals ages 19-32, RYLA (Rotary Youth Leadership Awards) is a weeklong intensive leadership experience providing inspiration and practical skills for developing young leaders. Many who have attended RYLA said it was a transformational experience in their lives.

Dependent on interest, our club usually pays for one or two people to attend RYLA annually. The application deadline for the 2024 RYLA is May 31.

If you know of someone who would be interested in attending RYLA, or perhaps are interested yourself, please contact our club’s RYLA chair, Andrea Stewart, at 503-352-2168 or astewart@pacificu.edu. To learn more about RYLA, visit the District 5100 RYLA Website. (NOTE: While there is an application link on the website, the application should not be filled out until an applicant has been approved by a club.)

Garden Committee – Work On Labyrinth: The Garden Committee is putting together a group to do some maintenance work on the labyrinth on the grounds of the Pacific University. Located along College Way near Old College Hall, the labyrinth was a project spearheaded by the club in memory of Rotarian and former Pacific University president Faith Gabelnick.

The work party will take place at the labyrinth on Wednesday, Apr. 10, from 1-3 p.m. We are looking for up to 10 volunteers to assist with the effort. If you are able to help, please let President Amy know.

Will Work For Shelterbox: Our Rotary Youth Exchange inbound student, Fareeha Nayebare, is offering to do yard work in order to raise funds for Shelterbox. Part of a fundraiser for the organization as part of District 5100 Youth Exchange, each inbound student is trying to raise $300. If you have work that you would like Fareeha to do, please contact her via email.

Committee Reports: Over the next couple of months, the club board would like to receive written committee reports to discuss at their monthly meetings. The reports should be a brief summary of the committee’s recent activities. For the April board meetings, any reports should be sent to President Amy by Monday, Apr. 8.

Scholarship Applications Open: The application period is now open for our 2024 Rotary Club of Forest Grove Scholarship Program. The program is open to graduating high schools that reside in the Forest Grove, Banks and Gaston school district attendance areas. These scholarships are made largely responsible by proceeds raised through our annual Concours d’Elegance car show. The one-time scholarships help pay for the first year of college or vocational school in the United States.

This year, applications for the program will only be accepted through the Going Merry website, which helps administer scholarship programs for a number or organizations in the U.S. Instructions on how to use the website and application instructions are available on our Rotary Scholarship Web Page.

The deadline for applications is Apr. 11, 2024. For questions, please contact Scholarship Committee chair Sharon Olmstead via email, sharon.olmstead8571@gmail.com.

Forest Grove HS Interact Club: Our inbound Youth Exchange student, Fareeha Nayebare, has restarted the Interact Club at Forest Grove High School! Meetings take place on Wednesdays at 3:30 p.m. All Rotarians are welcome. The club is currently working on a service project with the high school’s Food Pantry. For questions, please talk with Fareeha at our meetings.

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

Concours News
2024 Forest Grove Concours d’Elegance, presented by the Rotary Club of Forest Grove
Sunday, July 21 on Pacific University’s Forest Grove Campus

Concours Website | Enter A Car | 2024 Concours Weekend Schedule

Concours Committee Meetings: 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 Tuesday, Apr. 8 via Zoom.

February Meeting: Click Here To View The Notes From February’s Concours Meeting

Portland Swap Meet – Volunteers Needed: We will once again be promoting the Concours at the Portland Swap Meet, Apr. 5-7 at the Portland Expo Center. We will be looking for Rotarians to fill two-hour shifts to promote the show, hand out flyers and man our booth. A sign-up sheet for shifts will be distributed at our weekly meetings or you can contact Jim Crisp at 971-280-6848 or crispinor@aol.com to sign up.

Thank you to those club members who have already signed up for shifts: Tom Raabe, Amy Tracewell, Claire Agner, Jim Cain, Paul Waterstreet, Greg Nemchick, Jim Crisp, Pete Van Dyke and Pamelajean Myers.

Sponsorships: Sponsorships go a long way to increasing the profit of the Concours, which goes to fund our scholarship program and our club’s other outreach activities. To learn more about available sponsorships, Click Here to contact Tim Pearson at 503-998-8616 or timpearsonpc@gmail.com.

Polo Shirts: We still have a number of our club Concours polo shirts available for new members or club members who did not get one last year. The blue shirts have the Concours logo on the front and the club logo on the sleeve and are the work shirts we wear during the event. Shirts are $30 each. If you would like a shirt, please contact Tim Pearson.

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.

Upcoming Habitat For Humanity Service Project: The club is working with West Tuality Habitat for Humanity for a joint service project in May. We will have more details on this service opportunity soon.

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
Rotary One Conference: Make your plans now to attend the One Rotary Conference, District 5100’s combined training assembly and annual conference. This year’s conference runs from Friday, April 26 to Sunday, April 28 at the Best Western Hood River Inn in Hood River. This is a wonderful opportunity to not only learn more about Rotary, but to connect with Rotarians from all across the District.

The annual conference includes district training sessions on both Friday and Saturday. Friday evening features a barbeque dinner buffet and the annual Youth Exchange Talent Show (which will feature our Youth Exchange inbound student, Fareeha Nayeabre), a dinner event on Saturday and the annual awards ceremony and passing of the district governor banner on Sunday.

As our own Jeannine Murrell will be receiving the banner in advance of her district governor year, we would like to see as many members of our club as possible attend the conference to support her!

A link to register for the conference, along with the schedule of events and a link for hotel reservations at the Rotary rate, can be found at This DacDB Link (you must log in to DacDB to access). Registration closes on Apr. 9.

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

Last Week’s Meeting: Washington County Search & Rescue

Click Here To View The Complete Program

At last week’s meeting, we welcomed Russ Moser of the Washington County Sheriff’s Foundation and Lt. John McCullough of the Washington County Sheriff’s Office, who provided an overview of the Washington County Search & Rescue program and of the program’s youth academy.

Founded in 1966, Washington County Search & Rescue is one of the oldest search and rescue organizations in the U.S. and one of the largest youth search and rescue chapters in Oregon. The organization is staffed completely by volunteers. The program teaches young men and women important life skills and unique insight into the exciting career fields of Law Enforcement, Search and Rescue, and Emergency Medical Services.

Applicants to the program must be between 14 and 17, live in Washington County and have good academic standing, and must commit to spending two years in the program. Youths accepted to the cadet program can serve until age 21. The program begins with a rigorous training academy, where cadets are trained in land navigation, wilderness survival, human tracking, etc.

The search and rescue program also has an affiliated program designed for law enforcement mentorship. Participants receive job shadowing experiences and learn additional law enforcement specific skills. Teams are regularly called upon in the tri-county area to assist in search and rescue efforts.

In last two years, the team has been involved in a number of successful missions. Including locating a firearm used in the commission of a crime in Clackamas County, assisting with initial and follow-up searches for Kyron Horman in Multnomah County, a large-scale search in a crime area for an alleged serial murderer in Multnomah County, assisting with numerous missing person cases.

In 2023, Washington County Search & Rescue conducted 104 missions. Of those, 89 occurred in Wash County. There were 59 cases involving people with mental illness, 43 people found and brought to safety, 25 search and rescue consults, 17 evidence searches, 9 rescues and six community events.

Applications for this year’s cadet program are being accepted through Apr. 20. The training academy takes place from July 10-21. To learn more information or to apply, Click Here.

Club Calendar
Wed., Mar. 27: No Meeting

Wed., Apr. 3: Crab Feed
5:30 p.m. Social Hour, 6:30 p.m. Dinner
Forest Grove Senior & Community Center
Evening Meeting. There will be no noon meeting on Apr. 3

Tues., Apr. 9: Concours Committee Meeting, 7 p.m.
via Zoom

Wed., Apr. 10: Weekly Meeting, Noon
Grove Room, Forest Grove School District Office, 1728 Main St.
Program: Dr. Jim Moore, Pacific University

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

Wed., Apr. 17: Weekly Meeting, Noon
Boxer Pause Room, University Center, Pacific University
Program: Club Assembly

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