Since its inception on July 4, 1888, our World's Oldest Rodeo has been the primary feature each summer in our community.  Prescott Frontier Days was celebrated this year with a succession of activities, from July 1-7, including the traditional Rodeo Parade.  Our club meeting was consequently dark last Wednesday.  After originating here in Prescott 136 years ago, these professional rodeos have grown to number more than 700 now, and they can be found in all 50 states.  Drawing some 27,000 spectators each year, our World's Oldest Rodeo, together with the sponsoring Prescott Frontier Days, is a grand celebration of the pride we take in our western heritage. 

 

 

 

Polio Eradication, as we have previously noted, has become a part of Rotary's DNA, since we launched our Polio Eradication Initiative in 1985 — and we are very close to finally reaching our goal of a polio-free world.  

 

However, Rotary-sponsored Interact youth in our district raised the question, "What about the hundreds of thousands of crippled individuals around the world, for whom the two drops of polio vaccine came too late?"  Believing they could do something to give the gift of mobility to those people, "Enabling the Disabled" has become a part of the Interact DNA in our Rotary District.  The student leadership of our Interact District 5495 encourages our Interact, Rotaract and Rotary clubs to help them collect still-usable, but no-longer-needed, crutches, walkers, wheelchairs and other mobility devices, so they can ship them to our Rotary partners in other countries.  Those Rotarians are then able to give that equipment, at no charge, to the disabled poor in their areas, who otherwise have no access to such equipment  

 

Beyond that, our Interact Distrct has so far sent ten teams of trained high school age Intertact members to Kenya and to central Mexico to participate, with our Rotary partners in those countries, in the distribution of this equipment, personally helping to fit each mobility device to the needs of these individuals.  Our Prescott Sunup Rotary Club can proudly say we have had a significant part in helping Interact to develop these pioneer programs, which have already enabled several thousand disabled persons in these and several other countries.

 

At this week's club meeting you also will be learning about one of our club's phenomenal projects in central Mexico which has enabled a group of wheelchair-bound individuals by teaching them to become wheelchair mechanics,creating a mobile team, and thereby giving them a way to earn and serve.

 

 

 

 

Love Golf?  Looking for a way to play and give back to an AZ community?  Flagstaff Rotary Club invites you to come join them on Monday, July 29 at the spectacular Flagstaff Ranch Golf Club.

 

Swing, smile, and support the Rotary Club of Flagstaff and the Flagstaff Symphony Orchestra.  Breakfast and lunch are included in the single player fee of $175, or the team of four fee of $700.

 

 

 

Maasai education:  This past week, while based at Prescott College's Dopoi Center at Talek, on the edge of the Maasai Mara Game Preserve, our Interact Ambassadors to Kenya team has been working closely with the Maasai tribe and its leadership.  Part of their service has been to deliver donated educational supplies they brought with them to the Maasai children.  In this photo they are working with a 4th grade class.  Each of them also had the opportunity to teach a lesson in an assigned subject to one of the classes. 

 

 

It's Ambassadors' Wash Day in Kenya.  Each of our Ambassadors is given two of the gold-colored uniform shirts to wear when traveling and, as needed, when they are serving.  Hand washing of their clothes is required, followed by good old-fashioned wind & solar drying on clothes lines.