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Fully Virtual Club Meetings Jan 31- Feb 28, 2022

The number of COVID cases has been on the rise throughout our nation and in Illinois. During last week’s board meeting, the board decided to go fully remote participation in club meetings using WebEx starting with our January 31, 2022 meeting and continuing through the end of February. Over the last two years, the downtown club has adapted well to both fully remote and our hybrid model with both in-person and virtual participation so we don't anticipate any problems. The image above shows one of our fully virtual club meetings. Using the virtual platform will make it easier for some of our members and speakers to participate during this pandemic.

Club members and our guests will also be able to order and pick-up the delicious meals that Maldander’s prepares for our meetings for the price of only $15 a meal. Many club members order meals for their family members. The process for ordering and picking up meals is easy, but you have to make a reservation. Most issues of the newsletter available from this Home Page provide the details for reserving, picking up, and paying for meals. The process is easy. We are allowing you plenty of time to pick up meals and get home in time to participate in our Monday evening meeting.

Citrus Sale Update

Posted by Bill Smith

John Montgomery Memorial Citrus Drive!

This year we again named our Annual Citrus Drive in memory of long-term Rotarian John Montgomery. He was an important Past President of our Club who had perfect attendance for club meetings during his entire tenure in Rotary (over 50 years)! The Rotary Annual Citrus Sale has raised over $1.4 million for grants to local charities!

We obtain fresh-picked seedless Navel Oranges and Ruby Red Grapefruit from the Indian River Groves in central Florida and bring them to you for the Holiday Season. These Grade A oranges and Grapefruit are a favorite for gifts to family, friends, employees, and business associates.

Many Rotarians and customers have again designated gifts of oranges to the Central Illinois Foodbank or a Food Pantry of their choice through this program. Our club provides Ridgely School with an orange for each of their 300 students. We thank the following Rotarians for purchasing cartons of oranges for the Ridgely students this year: Randy Erford, Bill Kempiners, Loretta Meeks, Roger Randolph, Bill Sturm, and Barry Tobias.

Citrus Pick Up and Delivery Dates are December 10-11.

Thanks for helping us sell healthful, fresh citrus, and remember that our proceeds support grants to non-profits.

Rotary Family Day at the Ballpark!

Posted by Rod Buffington

Thanks to the Rotarians who attended the annual "Rotary Family Day at the Ballpark" on Sunday, October 3 (image to left). It was also a celebration for Mike Shannon as he ended his 50 years of being a player, an administrator, and most of all his career as the Cardinals lead announcer for KMOX. As Rotary baseball coordinator, I had the privilege of three interviews with Mike about Rotary Days at the Ballpark. For the October 3 event, Bill Smith and I were field guests of the Cardinals along with Past District Governor Maura Donnelly (image above) who nailed throwing out the first pitch. Ross Hodel captured the image below of her getting advice prior to her perfect pitch.

The Cubs won this game although it was shortened by three different rain stoppages. We all had exercise climbing up and down the steps from the second row of seats in Section 232. Congratulation to the Cardinals and their fans for the team playing on Wednesday, October 6 in the MLB playoffs. I tried to sell more tickets to the October 3 game by predicting that the Cardinals would have a great August run. Nobody throughout our Rotary District took the bait, therefore we had lower sales of tickets for Rotary Family Day than in previous years. Next year, we will be celebrating the 20th anniversary of Rotary Day at the games in St. Louis, therefore hopefully many tickets will be sold for the game. Over $520,000 has been raised to support literacy in our Rotary Districts in Central and Southern Illinois over the years through ticket sales for the Rotary Family Day games.

Springfield Rotary Foundation Awards 2021 Grants

Grants to 12 Non-profits and Support for Scholarships, International Projects, and Honor Flights

In May 2021, the Springfield Rotary Foundation awarded grants to local nonprofits for projects that combat hunger and promote literacy in our communities. We reaffirmed these needs as high priorities for our communities during our club’s most recent visioning process and in ensuing years. Our Club’s fundraising efforts through the Flag Service Program, John Montgomery Memorial Citrus Sales, and Club meeting fundraisers totaled $35,800. These funds allowed us to provide grants in support of 12 projects (described below), and to also set aside annual support for:

Scholarships for LLCC and UIS students (supplemented by $2,200 from brag-a-bucks & 50/50),
International service projects, and
Land of Lincoln Honor Flights

The majority of our funds support local organizations that work every day to help people in our community in a variety a ways. Our grants are especially important this year given the hardships associated with the Covid-19 pandemic. This year, we are inviting some of the larger grant recipients to be our guests for dinner at a club meeting so we can thank these organizations for their work in the community and celebrate their grant projects. At our June 7 club meeting, we presented grant checks to Catholic Charities for St. John's Breadline (image above) and to Compass for Kids for food for their Backpack Feeding Program for at-risk children (image below).

Descriptions of the funded projects are provided below.

We follow the Rotary Mantra of Service Above Self!

Covid 19 has changed the way we interact with each other and our community, but it has not changed the Rotary Club of Springfield’s commitment to improving literacy and eradicating hunger in our community. We have had a full year of service in 2021 and we are not done yet. A few highlights for our service over the past two years are provided below.

In 2021, we have been busy stocking the Micro-pantry we established at our adopted school, Ridgely Elementary (image above). We built four little libraries with support from a Rotary District 6460 Literacy Grant (image below).

We acquired a large donation of books to stock the Little Libraries we provided to Ridgely and Enos Schools and the St. John's Breadline. The images below show the sorting of the donated books for our Little Libraries and the fully stocked Little Library near the Micro-Pantry at Ridgely School.

In 2021, we also helped clean up Downtown Springfield twice (image on left below). We continued our popular Flag Service Project, which installs flags throughout our community through a subscription. The proceeds support grants to nonprofits that serve community needs (image on right below).

We are wrapping up our John Montgomery Memorial citrus sale (see article above), which provides monies for literacy grants for nonprofits. We are working on creating "Bags of Hope" and providing a meal to Homeless individuals in our community with three other Rotary Clubs, Rotary Youth Leadership Award High School Students, and the Salvation Army with support from a 2021 Rotary District Club Grant. We are preparing to participate in a Blood Drive with all five Rotary Clubs. Before the end of the year, we will provide Angel Tree Gifts for the Rutledge Youth Foundation, work with Home Alone to provide holiday cards and gifts cards for seniors, and ring the bells for the Salvation Army.

Here are just a few highlights for 2020 service projects during the pandemic. We continued to work on many of these projects in 2021.

In the Summer of 2020, Club Member Neal Miller built and helped install a Little Library for ImagicNation (image to left), and club members continue to provide it with books for children to enjoy.

In 2020, white boards were distributed to four elementary schools in Springfield that helped children learn from home or school through a District 6460 Club grant we wrote jointly with the other local Rotary Clubs.

To help reduce hunger, our club joined with United Way Days of Action to stock micro-pantries throughout Springfield, and we provided cans, cartons and cases of food items on September 26, 2020. Our Club provided a dinner meal through the Meal Train on October 29, 2020 for 55 homeless men and women staying at the Cooling & Warming Center on 1015 E. Madison Street. We provided the meals, desserts, beverage and disposable service items. For many, it was the only hot meal they had on that day.

In November 2020, Vicki and Norm Megginson filled and delivered 50 bags of essential supplies to the Springfield Police Department for distribution to homeless individuals in our community. Club members donated new hats, gloves, handwarmers, warm socks, hand sanitizer, masks, kleenex packs, lip balm, toothbrushes, tooth paste, shampoo, soap, hand lotion, and healthful treats for the bags.

In November 2020, Vicki Megginson arranged for the installation of the micro-pantry at Ridgely School, and Club members are stocking the pantry with nutritious food.

We also made the 2020 holiday season a bit brighter by partnering with Home Instead to provide gift cards and cheery cards to isolated seniors. We continued to provide holiday cheer for youth as well through our long-term partnership with Rutledge Youth Foundation. Club members purchased angel tree gifts for Rutledge youth, and we joyously rang the Salvation Army bells at Schnuck’s on Chatham Road.

Don’t forget to log your service hours. Just click on this link: https://airtable.com/shr4cB7BpJjpwXDEr

If you need to record your hours at another time, you can go to the “Download Documents” on the left side of the Home Page Website (www.spirotary.org), click on the “Record Your Rotary Volunteer Hours” file, and then click on the link. The form is easy to fill out!

Our club has a long-term volunteer relationship with the Central Illinois Foodbank. The image to the left shows rotary volunteers in 2021. Through our annual citrus sale, Rotary Clubs in Springfield and our customers also donate cartons of oranges to the Foodbank for distribution to food pantries throughout their region.