I am so honored and thankful to have been chosen to take over the Director of Community Services position, and I wanted to give a huge shout out to the incomparable Vicki Megginson for working so hard these past few years and giving me so many amazing contacts and information to start this Rotary year off right!
Clean Up Robin Roberts Stadium and Watch a Lucky Horsehoes’ Game on Aug. 4 (Tonight)
Please join us as we collaborate with the Springfield Westside Rotary club to help clean up Robin Roberts Stadium before the Springfield Lucky Horseshoes game this evening (August 4, from 4:30 to 5:30 p.m.) Participants that purchase a ticket for the game immediately following will be treated with Nate Clemmer's son Cohen's rendition of the National Anthem!
If there are any cancellations due to weather I will update accordingly through a ClubRunner email. See you there!
Special thanks to Bill Sturm for signing up to help already!
Megan Norman
Director of Community Service
Ridgely School Micropantry
I'm asking my fellow Rotarian's to continue help with the Ridgely School micropanty (image on right). It's currently inside their school, but will be brought out and positioned at their main entrance at the beginning of August. Please let me know if you are able to help with this amazingly successful project by taking a two week slot.
Volunteers are needed to monitor and stock the pantry for two shifts each month (Shift A during the first half of the month and shift B during the second half of the month). Feel free to add food to the pantry anytime you are in the area.
Thank you so much for your responses to help with the Ridgely pantry! Between everyone, we are good to go until mid December! I will send out reminder emails a few days in advance of your chosen shifts.
August A: Bill Sturm
August B: Vicki Megginson
September A: Christine Banks
September B: Harry Mitchell
October A: Kathryn Harris
October B: John Loftus
November A: Kirk Kellus
November B: Jim Applegate
December A: Megan Norman
December B:
Thank you so much to everyone! Please let me know if you would like to take the second half of December.
Have an amazing weekend!
Little Libraries
There will also be opportunities to assist with our Little Libraries by sorting and stocking books. The image below shows the Little Library at Ridgely Elementary School. Feel free to add books to the Ridgely School Little Library at anytime. Information on our other Little Libraries will follow soon.
Central Illinois Foodbank
We will need 10 volunteers for packing food for the Central Illinois Foodbank on the afternoon of August 9 or 10. Stay tuned for more details. Let me know if you are interested in this opportunity.
Flag Service Project
We have collected and stored the flags until our next deployment for Labor Day (September 5) and Patriots Day (September 11). We installed 550 flags for our Flag Service Project. Thank you to the volunteers who installed flags and lights and collected flags. All flags were in place before the Memorial Day (May 30) weekend and remained in place through Flag Day (June 14) and the Fourth of July holiday.
Many hands make light work! We are recruiting for more folks to help with conduit installations (for new customers) and to take or team up with a spouse/friend/child/fellow Rotarian for a distribution route. This is an excellent service opportunity for just a few hours work. Please consider helping out with this.
Contact John Loftus (jlloftus@aol.com) or Marty Michelson (exdirector@rutledgeyouthfoundation.com) if you have any questions and about what you could do to volunteer and sign up for this worthwhile projects. Proceeds from flag program help support our community grants program.
Wooden It Be Lovely Little Black Dress Gala on August 26
Wooden It Be Lovely offers hope to women healing from lives of poverty, addiction, and abuse by providing transitional employment, mentoring, recovery tools, education, community networking, and safe place to stay. The women in the program help refurbish old furniture for sale.
We hope to enlist enough Rotarians to fill a whole table at this fundraiser. Tickets are $100 each. The Gala will be held at the Crowne Plaza from 6:00-9:00 p.m. The event includes a cocktail hour, dinner, dessert, and a swag bag. The program will include testimonials of hope from women in the program and an auction of furniture refurbished by the women as well as dancing. Stay tuned for more details and sign-up sheet.
Megan Norman, Community Service Director
217-801-6452
mnorman@familiadental.com
I implore each one of you to never be shy in offering suggestions for service projects, and I will try my best to fill the big shoes left by Vicki Megginson! Thanks you for everything you do for the community!
