Buy Your Tickets Now for October 3 Baseball Game
Posted by Rod Buffington
We are thrilled to announce that we will have another Rotary Family Day at the Ballpark on October 3, 2021 at Busch Stadium in St. Louis. We will watch the 2:15 p.m. game between our favorite rivals -- the St. Louis Cardinals and the Chicago Cubs. It may or may not be for the pennant! We have reserved right field loge seating in sections 234-228. Your discounted price for the tickets is $55.00.
 
You can download the ticket order form from our Website Home page by clicking on the highlighted link. Order your tickets before they are all gone! Please share copies of the order form with your friends and colleagues. Please remember that proceeds from ticket sales support our District Literacy Grant Program. It's a Win for Literacy! Stay tuned for details on transportation to the game. 
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.
 
Read more...
Making our Community Red, White, and Blue
Posted by John Loftus
The Rotary Flag Service Project has been making our community red, white, and blue since 2016.  We will begin deploying flags for the 2021 season to have them in place before Memorial Day (May 31). We leave the flags out from Memorial Day until after July 4. Then our volunteer teams retrieve the flags and return them to our warehouse. On Monday Aug. 30, a week before Labor Day, we deploy the flags again, retrieving them after September 11. 
 
Rotary’s motto is Service Above Self and the Rotary Club of Springfield will be continuing the deployment of flags to honor those who have served in the military and all the people working very hard to care for our health and well-being from nurses, doctors and everyone that supports the medical profession including first responders to stock personnel, cashiers and all the others that work in stores that supply our basic needs to truck drivers, people operating truck and fuel stops and mechanics that keep the trucks operating to people working in restaurants so we have a choice of what we eat during the Covid-19 pandemic. All these people are heroes and are living Rotary’s motto every day putting their service first. 
 
If you don't already subscribe to this service, we hope that you will consider doing so. For those of you who subscribe to this service and have already paid the $60 annual fee for 2021, we thank you. For those of you that have not yet paid, we would appreciate your contribution as soon as you are able so we can  provide grants to community organizations that help people in need. Payments for subscriptions should be sent to The Springfield Rotary Foundation, PO BOX 615, Springfield, IL 62705.
 
Should you need to reach us, please email flag@rotaryflagservice.com or leave a message at 217-566-4326. 
 
Thank you for your support and stay safe!!

John Loftus
Rotary Flag Services 
Hybrid Club Meetings are Back!

Participate in Person or Online!

On February 1, we returned to our hybrid meeting format for our weekly club meetings. You may chose to participate in the meeting in person at Maldaners Upstairs or online through Webex. If you participate in person, please wear your mask and continue to practice social distancing. Barry Tobias (image above, left front) will continue to provide online service and provide the meeting link in the Newsletter. For those participating online, curbside meals are still available for order using the link in the Newsletter.
 
Now that meeting in person is again possible, it is a great time to invite a friend or acquaintance who has a heart for serving others. That's the essence of what we do. Bring them along to see if Rotary is right for them!  
Community Service During the Pandemic
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. Here are just a few highlights for 2020 service projects during the pandemic. We continue working 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 September 2020, white boards were distributed to four elementary schools in Springfield that will help 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 a micro-pantry at Ridgely School, and Club members are stocking the pantry with nutritious food (image to right).
 
We made the 2020 holiday season a bit brighter by partnering with Home Instead to provide small gifts and cheery cards to isolated seniors. Home Instead provided us with wish lists in November, and our gifts and cards were delivered in early December for the seniors to enjoy. We continued to provide holiday cheer for youth as well through our continued partnership with Rutledge Youth Foundation. Club members purchased angel tree gifts for Rutledge youth. 
 
On Saturday, December 5 we joyously rang the Salvation Army bells at Schnuck’s on Chatham Road  between 11 a.m. and 7:30 p.m.
 
The article below provides more information on service projects in 2020. They provide great examples of the work our Club does in the community. Club members are hard at work on numerous service projects in 2021 including volunteer work at the Central Illinois Foodbank (image below), stocking the Ridgley School Micro-Pantry, buying books for the Little Library and so much more.
 
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!
Story Direct for Rotary International
Rotary projects around the globe August 2021

Learn more about the projects that Rotarians and Rotaractors are bringing to life in their communities.

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