Happy Holidays Rotarians! I hope that each and every one of you has a wonderful holiday and has the opportunity to spend some quality time with family and friends. Tiffany and I will spend Christmas with her parents (and fellow Rotarians) Larry and Marcia Janssen and afterwards we will fly to Orlando, Florida to spend a week with my parents. Spending time with family is one of the real blessings of the holiday season for us. It will also be nice to get away from the colder temperatures expected towards the end of the year! It’s always good to have family who live in warmer climates.
One year ago, when writing his President’s Message for December, President Erich was celebrating the success of the Ukraine fundraiser. I have been a member of the Brookings Rotary Club for about a decade and to me, that fundraiser was one of the most impressive service activities we have ever pulled off as a club. It’s nice to know our club played a part in helping Ukrainians in need. President Erich also noted that we had several challenges we needed to address. First and foremost was a drop in membership. This December, I am proud to report that membership in our club has turned the corner! We’ve added several new members and will continue to recruit future Rotarians thanks to the leadership of President Elect Jen and Past President Don. The second challenge we needed to address was resurrection of the Rotary Youth Exchange and “student of the month”. Although “student of the month” continues to be a challenge, District 5610 leadership has done excellent work with revamping the Rotary Youth Exchange and Toby Uecker has agreed to coordinate this effort for our club again.
We have continued doing great work in the community. Our Feeding Brookings fundraiser has been an unmitigated success. The bake sale at SDSU raised almost $350 for Feeding Brookings and Mary Kidwiler emptied our pocketbooks to the tune of $550 at the end of November! (Thanks Mary!) Along with the District grant and club match, we raised close to $1,500 for Feeding Brookings ($1,398 to be exact)!! Let’s round this donation to $1,500 at this month’s Thirsty Thursday at Pints & Quarts! These dollars will be a welcome gift to people in need this holiday season.
We have an excellent program lined up for December by Dr. David Reynolds. I want to highlight a special guest speaker who will come to Rotary on December 19th. Caleb Thielbar, a pitcher for the Minnesota Twins, will be our guest speaker. It’s not every day that a professional athlete drops by the Brookings Rotary Club. Please invite your friends who are Twins fans to join us. Then, invite them to become a member! Thanks everyone for your support of Rotary. As always, if you haven’t been coming recently, you are always welcome to return!! We would love to see you again.
Yours in Rotary,
President Michael