Thank you to our community and fellow Rotarians for a successful food drive (even with a limited amount of members participating due to all the smoke and hazardous air quality). According to Sheila O’Keefe, Executive Director of the South Corvallis Food Bank, 799 lbs of food was delivered to their facilty on Saturday. “Lot’s of good stuff we can really use!”
Club members reported very generous neighbors. Kim and Tom Nelson, with the help of Richard Tirrell, collected over 20 bags from their Willamette Landing neighborhood. Gerry Kosanovic collected from 13 of 26 homes. Tiffany Bailey reported that she and her daughter Zoey picked up a good haul from her neighbors. Other Rotarians participating this past weekend included; Claudia Hamilton, Andy Tucknott, Daniel Sidder, Lee and Michelle Eckroth, and Inge King. Special thanks to Inge, Gerry and Claudia for coordinating things!
If you missed this opportunity – fear not – we are doing this again in October. Stay tuned for updated flyers and information. In the meantime, come to our September Final Friday Fellowship Event (September 25 at the Rotary Shelter at Willamette Park, from 4:00pm – 5:30pm) and pick up your bags (and your new Rotary T-Shirt).
Club News
Special Friends Home Deliveries
Our Rotary Club is definitely made up of People of Action! Thank you to Claudia Hamilton, Ali Bonakdar (and son), Dave Henderer, Carol Lee Woodstock, and Charlie Mitchell for delivering ice cream, rocks, painting supplies, and sidewalk chalk to our Special Friends homes. This was in lieu of having our annual Special Friends Picnic. We couldn’t celebrate together this year, so we took the fun to them.
Get a Taste of Africa With Group Cultural Exchange
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The fourth Object of Rotary is The advancement of international understanding, goodwill, and peace through a world fellowship of business and professional persons united in the ideal of service.
Group Cultural Exchange is a Rotary supported program for young adults, ages 25-45, in which a local team has the opportunity to exchange with a team from another country in pursuit of both the fourth Object of Rotary and personal vocational goals. District 5110 has established an exchange with District 9400 in South Africa for the 2020-2021 year.
Click on the following links for all the details:
9400 Exchange Document an explanation of our 2020-2021 exchange
Group Study Exchange Information (has general program information)
Applications for team members and team leader are available on DacDb (access through district website as well) and the deadline for submission is Octobers 15, 2020. It is important to know, too, that although the TEAM LEADER must be a District 5110 Rotarian, team members may be anyone who lives or works within our district.
Have We Got Some Awesome Opportunities For You!
We reached out to the 8 various Senior Living Facilities in the community and asked them, “How can we help?” We heard back from two of them; Timberhill Place and The Regent. Following are opportunities that were created based on conversations with the activity directors at both places. If you are interested in helping with any of these activities, or would like some more information, please contact Jenny: jenny@talk2lee.com
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Are you creative? Are you crafty? Do you like hanging out with club members that like to have fun? Does the thought of bringing smiles to the faces of others give you a warm fuzzy? We are starting a group, under the umbrella of the Community Service Committee, that will get together about once a month and put together craft bags for residents at both Timberhill Place and The Regent. So far, members include; Jenny Bouman, Michele Goodrick, Tiffany Bailey, Laura Young, and Tammy Morrison.
Are you a musician? Do you know a musician? The residents would love to listen to a Courtyard Concert! We believe it would be great fun for all if we could find some people with music skills to play out in their open courtyard for an hour or so, during the summer, so the residents could enjoy music coming in through their windows. FUN FACT: our very own DJ Gerry is going to be taking requests and playing some tunes from the Big Band Era, for the residents, in the upcoming weeks.
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Do you have a green thumb? Are you good with roses? Do you have some time, on occasion, where you could do a little gardening? Timberhill Place is looking for someone to tend their small rose garden; just the roses, no weeding involved.
FINAL FRIDAY FELLOWSHIP
The Fellowship Committee met last week and discussed our plans for the upcoming Final Friday Fellowship events. After much in-debt discussion and deliberation, we have come up with our plan and our first event, on July 31 will be a virtual Game Night with Conundrum House. In viewing our plan through the lens of the Four-way test, we felt that this month is a great time to get more interactive at a distance. With this week’s updated Covid guidelines and our members advocating to slow the spread, folks are hesitant to get together in person and, at the same time, do not want to feel alienated. Our committee sees the online platform for meeting in fellowship to be fair for anyone in the club to join us. We will all zoom in with our regular Rotary meeting number.
The first round of drinks will be on us; the Rotarians that join us for the Game Night will be given a choice of 4 local businesses from which Rotary will “buy” their first drink by providing a $5 gift certificate in the mail the next week. Our committee sees this as an opportunity to support local businesses.
Notes of Kindness & Caring for our Communities Isolated, Older Adults
Are you looking for something to do during these trying times?
Do your kids need a project to occupy their time?
Our Rotary Club could use some help! The residents in our local senior centers, nursing homes, and assisted living communities, due to the Covid-19 lock-downs, are feeling alone during this stressful time. Reaching out to isolated older adults is essential right now. Getting contact from the outside world helps to keep their spirits up.
Making a difference can be quite easy, yet it can make a big impact! Over the last several months, our Club has sent more than 500 note cards to all the local senior facilities. This time we hope to be able to send cards to all residents at Regency Park Place and Conifer House. We need a total of 86 note cards and a total of 30 thank you note cards for the Care Teams at both places. You, your kids, your family, your friends, your clubs, are all invited to help us write these note cards.
It’s amazing how simple words of kindness and comfort during difficult times can have such a positive affect. Every tiny act we take to lift another creates a ripple effect that spreads far and wide. Even when we can’t see it.
- Following are snippets of a message from a daughter of one of the senior citizens who received a card from one of our Rotary members.
“My mother lives at a retirement community in Corvallis and since Covid-19 she has been very isolated. They have had to cut back on activities and social interactions for their residents. I believe the isolation and lack of stimulation has contributed to a recent decline in her memory. Tonight she told me she received a card from you. She said she couldn’t remember when she got it or why she got it, but she said it was really nice and that she was keeping it in her room because it made her really happy.
I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart and let you and the Rotary Club of Greater Corvallis know that it really meant a lot to her to receive that card.”
Here is information for this next batch of note cards:
- DEADLINE FOR DROPPING OFF CARDS IS FRIDAY, JULY 17th
- DROP OFF LOCATION: TOWN & COUNTRY REALTY – ANNEX A BUILDING
- 455 NW TYLER AVENUE, CORVALLIS (Corner of 4th and Tyler)
- There will be a white drop off basket on the back porch of the Annex Building, near the bistro table
- Questions? Contact Jenny; jenny@talk2lee.com
Make the cards appealing to all. We will not be sending you a list of names to address the cards to, so please leave a space at the top of your note for staff to write in a name – and please don’t seal the envelope 🙂
Gifts for residents, such as crossword puzzles, books, word searches, are welcome. The following link has free, large print crossword puzzles and word search puzzles http://www.qets.com/crossword_puzzles.htm
The front staff will put these items into a basket with the cards for facility staff to distribute to the the residents they think would most appreciate them.
Writing back is ok for you to encourage in your cards. We suggest you include your name and address directly in the card if you wish to be pen pals. We will provide a stack of stamped, blank envelopes when we drop off the cards to the facilities, for any residents that wish to write back.
The cards can be simple, fancy, store bought, hand crafted out of construction paper…it’s the thought that counts.
Thank you for making a difference!