Our Prescott-Sunup Rotary members helped fill 52 Mayer School Holiday Gift Bags during our club meeting last week — before breakfast!  The gift bags are for identified high school age homeless youth attending school in Mayer.  

 

 

John Stewart, our former National League Umpire club member, was up to his chin in blankets he brought to donate to Mayer's homeless high school kids.  These used blankets, to be distributed as-needed, are in addition to the new rolled blanket (being held by Marsha Teller), which was placed in each Holiday Gift Bag.

 

 

One of the fundamental basics of Rotary is the conviction that we can do more good together, than we could ever accomplish by ouirselves.  Rotary is all about "the power of WE."

 

 

We missed getting John Stewart's Birthday Boy celebration in last week's newsletter.  He doesn't appear to be too enthused about wearing the birthday hat and listening to the club's serenade.

This week it was Russ Davis' birthday that we celebrated in  Pres. Christy's style.  Past Pres. Laura was presiding, since Christy was out with a sprained ankle.

 

 

 

 

Emmett Jones, Co-chair of our Sunup Family Fun Fest, distributed copies of the list of committees which have established for our annual fundraiser, and encouraged each member to sign up for the committees on which they would prefer tro serve,  Everyone will be assigned to serve on at least one committee, in additional to assisting us in obtaining sponsors for this June 22 event, being hosted by Touchmark at the Ranch.  Please let us know your committee preference.  The Fundraising Committee meets again at 5:30 on Tuesday, Dec. 17, at the Finn at Touchmark. 

 

Emmett Jones explaining Family Fun Fest plans and committee structure.

 

 

 

Our Interact District's signature international service project for the past 10 years has been our Interact Crutches 4 Africa Project.  Our clubs collect still-usuable crutches, walkers, wheelchairs, canes and other mobility quipment to ship to our Rotary partners in Africa to help "enable the disabled."  The equipment is temporarily stored in an East Valley storage container located at a school in Queen Creek, in a West Valley container located in Glendale in the large backyard of an Interact Faculty Advisor, and 2-time Ambassadors Team Advisor, and at Rotarian Ron Williams' Ponderosa Mini-Storage here in Prescott.  Periodically the stored equipment is then transferred from these locations to Denver, the base of operations for our Rotary Crutches 4 Africa organization  In Denver it is combined with other equipment, already waiting there, to be loaded into a 40-ft. shipping container.  The next shipment from Denver to Uganda and Kenya is scheduled for December 28.  

 

 

On Saturday our Interact District Council was hard at work, loading the equipment from our two storage units in the Valley into a 26-ft U-Haul Truck, which is now on its way to Denver, to help fill the container bound for Uganda nd Kenya.  The photo above shows some of the Council members preparing to transfer the equiipment from the storage unit (on the right) to the truck (on the feft).  The Interactors got to meet the two large emus in Shelly Petersen's backyard, which guard our storage cointainer.

 

  

A transfer line was set up to pass the mobility devices from the storage unit, down the line and up the ramp into the truck, to those doing the stacking and packing inside the truck.

 

Part of the East Valley loading crew at Interact's storage location in Queen Creek.  District Governor Anise Carroll Covarrubias, being on crutches from a recent knee surgery, operated a portable sound system she brought, playing requested music to help encourage and inspire the loading crews.