Written by Jane Anne Shimizu
Speakers Art Harrington, Marco Cecala and John Scholl, who is Prescott Sunup Rotary’s representative on the Yavapai 7 Scholarship Committee gave an inspiring presentation on the Rotary Foundation Vocational Fund (TRVFA).
Art began by telling how, years ago, his visionary Rotarian pharmacist friend, David Wastchak, had imagined the possibility of Arizona Rotarians being able to qualify one of their programs for a state tax credit. That vision was the genesis of The Rotary Vocational Fund of Arizona (TRVFA), which became qualified for the AZ Charitable Tax Credit with its vocational education scholarships designed to help Arizona’s working poor.
Today, uniquely in all of this country, individuals can obtain a dollar-for-dollar state tax credit for donations of up to $400 to this cooperative Rotary vocational scholarship fund, and couples can claim a credit of up to $800.
Describing the current great work of Arizona Rotary’s vocational Scholarship Program, Art said TRVFA had funded 70 scholarships of up to $2,000 each, during the first 9 months of this year, and had received 135 applications.
Yavapai county residents had not been beneficiaries of these scholarships until an innovative proposal was made to the TRVFA Board at its July meeting this year, designed to begin correcting that deficiency.
Authorized at that meeting was the formation of a provisional Yavapai County TRFVA Scholarship Committee, as a collaboration between the 7 Rotary Clubs of this county, Yavapai College’s award-winning CTEC program and TRVFA.
As envisioned, this new Yavapai 7 Scholarship Committee would work directly with the college’s CTEC Dean and the CTEC Programs Chairs to identify qualifying students most in need of this kind of a hand-up scholarship assistance, and could begin awarding TRVFA scholarships, within the scope of TRVFA’s available funds, for the first time to qualifying Yavapai County residents.
The Yavapai 7 Committee was also authorized to expand the currently-approved vocational categories to offer these scholarships for any of Yavapai College’s CTEC programs, which are designed to provide training for local residents to be able to enter the local job market in Yavapai Country — rather than having to leave our communities to seek training for jobs located elsewhere.
As with all TRVFA scholarships, each recipient must be sponsored by a local Rotary club, which will provide ongoing assistance and encouragement to the individual until the person has completed his/her certification or course of study, and has become gainfully employed.
President Richard Hernandez noted that this Yavapai 7 Scholarship Committee represents a groundbreaking new approach to granting Rotary vocational scholarships, and that it is the first collaborative venture of the seven Rotary Clubs in Yavapai County.
Sunup Rotary has budgeted club support of $1,200 for TRVFA this year, and each Fall the club will be encouraging our members to personally support TRFVA through their own donations, taking advantage of the state’s Charitable Tax Credit.
39th Annual Prescott Christmas Parade!
Come out and join us for our Rotary entry in the 2021 Prescott Christmas parade.
The parade is scheduled for Saturday, December 4, from 1 pm - 5pm.
MEETING LOCATION AND TIME WILL BE ANNOUNCED ON OR AFTER NOV. 22, WHEN WE RECEIVE OUR ENTRY NUMBER. Check for email!
Sunup Rotary has registered a parade entry for all Prescott area Rotary clubs. Ron Williams will once again be providing the float and his fabulous Cobra.
The 2021 parade theme will be “It’s a Who-Ville Christmas” and thus we are strongly urged to dress in a similar fashion as those characters of the fictional town Who-Ville in the Dr. Seuss cartoons. Basically any kind of missed-matched, outrageously distasteful clothes. Google
Who-Ville for ideas.
WE NEED A GRINCH VOLUNTEER!
Thank you!!!
Currently outside Cabin #12
Currently inside Cabin 12
Remodeled Cabin example
Camp Wamatochick
Art Harrington announced the foundation’s $5,000 donation to Camp Wamatochick for winterizing Cabin #12 at the camp so it can be used year-around. This is both a youth and community service project.
The photo above show Art presenting our club's $5,000 check this week to Mike Strait, camp manager so he can begin purchasing the materials. As a capable builder, Mike will, in fact, be doing most of the remodeling work on the cabin, using the funds we have provided for the building materials and to purchase the new steel bunks for it.
The goal is to have our cabin's remodel completed by the end of January.
To help Mike accomplish this, we are scheduling two Prescott Sunup Rotary workdays on Saturday, Dec. 11, and Saturday, Jan.22.
On Dec. 11, we expect to primarily be cutting, hanging, taping and texturing the drywall inside the cabin.
On Jan. 22, the primary work will be assembling the new steel bunks, although some inside painting may still need to be done at that point.
Club members who may wish to arrange to help Mike with some of the other work at other times will be welcome to do that; but we are committing our club to just these two workdays.
This beautiful, rustic camp, nestled in the Prescott National Forest, is one of the oldest camps in this area, being established in 1926. It was operated for many years as a Campfire Girls camp. Most of the cabins were solidly built by volunteers back in the 1930s, and they have withstood the test of time quite well, However, they were built primarily for summer use.
Over a period of years, a number of the camp's buildings have been winterized; but five of the cabins still remain to be upgraded. The photos of the inside and outside of our adopted cabin show, among other things the screens on the sides of the building, instead of windows. I have included a photo of the inside of one of the cabins which has been remodeled for winter use. When completed, our club's cabin will look similar to this one, and our club's name will appear on the outside of the cabin, crediting our club for our contribution of funds and labor, resulting in the winterization of it.
This is the camp which hosts our annual Interact District Council Retreat. In addition, we will be launching our first JR RYLA at this camp in June. We have developed a great working relationship with the current owners of this nonprofit Christian camp, and we anticipate basing more Rotary programs there in the future.
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