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Vergennes Rotary’s Efforts Impact The Community

Member Scott Gains asking for help to be released from jail during the recent Jail-n-Bail fund raiser.
photo by provided
Member Scott Gains asking for help to be released from jail during the recent Jail-n-Bail fund raiser.
Local members wrapping gifts for meals on wheels’ recipients.
photo by provided
Local members wrapping gifts for meals on wheels’ recipients.
This year’s Memorial Day Parade’s winning float.
photo by provided
This year’s Memorial Day Parade’s winning float.

Tuesday June 28, 2016

By Cookie Steponaitis

The Vergennes Rotary Mavericks have just completed another successful year of charitable donations, service projects and programs aimed at improving the quality of life both at home and around the world. Exemplifying their motto ‘Service Above Self’ the group provided $20,000 worth of monetary contributions and many hours of community service to impact children, the elderly, teens and the community.
    A change over ceremony in June will mark the beginning of a new year of service and leadership of a new president. The group meets on Tuesday mornings at the Champlain Valley Christian School with breakfast at 7:15 AM and an informative program that ends at 8:30 sharp. Interactive programs this past year have included professional football players, speakers from the Vermont Legislature, a Teddy Roosevelt impersonator and historian, authors, the non- profit Purple Heart’s Reunited and speakers on current local topics.
    “We continue to serve our community through service projects and funding,” explained incoming Rotary President Susan Burdick. “We as a group get together and pool money and resources. Our donations are multiplied ten and twenty fold. Rotary is a way to funnel your donation of money or time to have more impact.” While most Addison County residents are familiar with the Meals on Wheels Program for the elderly, few know that the Rotary is the catalyst for the meals to be delivered. Scheduling, coordination, delivery and the contribution of time and gas throughout the year is on the agenda of the Vergennes Rotary, along with many volunteers who help deliver to about forty people in the region.
    In addition to the meals Vergennes Rotarians make certain that these same senior members of the community receive gifts every holiday and they do not go without food, companionship and recognition. Additional service projects include food drives for the local food shelves, quarterly monetary donations and turkey drives each holiday season.
    Through their charitable giving programs this year, six graduating seniors at VUHS received a $1,000.00 scholarship each for college or a technical school. Four thousand dollars provided the Boys & Girls Club of Vergennes healthy and nutritious snacks daily for the year. The group also focuses on the youth in the area by sponsoring the local Speech Contest and providing two scholarships for two sophomores to attend the Rotary Youth Leadership Conference. In addition, Rotary selects a student representative from VUHS and provides an opportunity and compensation for the student representative to attend meetings, report out on school activities and serve as a conduit for projects linking Rotary, the school and community. Vergennes Rotary is well known locally for the Books for Bikes program and spearheaded a summer reading campaign that rewards children and teens for becoming voracious readers by providing brand new Mountain Bikes to be won. Throughout all of our fundraising we are thankful for the generous community that helps us to achieve our fundraising goals.
    At the heart of this active group is the belief that, “service takes many forms and many sets of hands makes light work,” expressed outgoing president C.J. Herbert. “Through our donations to the Rotary Foundation, where most members make an annual donation for the purpose of doing good and changing lives close to home and through the world, Rotary International has come to within inches of seeing the eradication of polio in the world. Currently the nations of Pakistan and Afghanistan are the only two nations with unchecked breakouts of Polio.” Focused on its eradication Rotary groups across the world know that there must be a continued focus of money, inoculations and treatment because the World Health Organization warns that as, “long as a single child remains infected with the polio virus, children in all countries are at risk of contracting the disease.”
    Looking to join a group where your time and donations are magnified by others? Rotary is looking for new members interested in joining the Vergennes Rotary group and they should check out the vergennesrotary.org site or send an email to the new president [email protected]. One special project this year involved the Vergennes Rotary donating $1500.00 to the Purple Hearts Reunited non-profit which has a mission of returning lost or stolen military medals of valor to veterans or their families to honor their sacrifice to the nation. The organization started in 2012 and returns the last tangible piece of a veteran to his or her family. The Vergennes Rotary’s donation allowed one Purple Heart lost by circumstance to be returned with dignity. Vergennes Rotarians are joined together in service to others and looking forward to the beginning of another year where the formula for success and change that has been a part of Addison County since 1937. Truly it is ‘Service Above Self’.


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