As we come to the end of the Rotary Year, many thanks to President Dan LeBrun for his leadership and all of his hard work. It was a challenging year in many ways, but Dan was able to keep the club connected, active, and engaged, especially as we celebrate our 100th anniversary! At our most recent meeting, Dan gave a recap of his year (which is even more recapped here, but there's lots!)
Covid brought us changes including a new 12 pm start time, the introduction of Zoom meetings, and a club Venmo account to collect virtual payments. It also brought us the opportunity to connect. Locally, we joined with the Interact Club members via Zoom and helped to support some of their projects. From further away, we connected with our friends in the Taunton, England Rotary Club and even received a beautiful gift of a cider mug to celebrate our 100th anniversary.
We heard from members in presentations throughout the year, welcomed new Rotarians to the club, and said goodbye to friends we will miss. We worked to celebrate our anniversary in the community with a letter-to-the-editor of the Taunton Daily Gazette, a Youth Works social media project, and a proclamation from the Mayor and City Council. Our biggest event, just this past June, was Family Fun Day where we welcomed 400+ people at Camp Riverside with great music, food, activities, and weather.
And of course, all of this hard work is to be able to give back to the community, especially in our anniversary year. We continued our recent tradition of donating backpacks to begin the school year, and also donated handmade mittens and holiday gifts to local families over the winter. We joined the Million Mask Challenges twice and facilitated 6,250 makes to 15 local organizations. For financial gifts, the club established a Donor Advised Fund within Rotary Foundation, for “tax deductible” getting & giving. This has allowed us to raise nearly $50,000 this Rotary Year to date, to turn right around and donate to worthy causes including disaster relief around the country, TACC teacher recognition event, diversity and inclusion book donations to local schools, our District Conference, the Rose Bowl Parade, and more. Local organizations in our community have received $17,000 and another $3,000 to the Rotary Foundation.
So as we end the 2020-21 year we look back on all the great things the club has done this past year. We look forward to the 100th Anniversary celebration dinner slated for 10/ 28 at the Holiday Inn. We celebrate President Dan for all his hard work and leadership and with look forward to President Bob's year and all that is in store for our upcoming Rotary Year!
