What a year it’s been! When I reflect on the hardships and restrictions we endured due to the COVID pandemic, I am amazed at all we accomplished in Englewood and internationally through our partnerships. This is a testament to the strength and commitment of the officers and members of our club!

 

Internationally, we helped fund nursing students in an underserved area of Haiti, helped artisans in Mexico impacted by COVID, partnered with the Fair Lawn Sunrise Rotary Club to support a Honduras Water project, and supported the Rotary Foundation’s polio eradication program.

 

Locally, we worked to help combat food insecurity in Englewood with our bins at ShopRite which we empty regularly and donate to the Center for Food Action. Rotarians continue to assist Chef Dion in preparing and packaging meals for Englewood residents. Additionally, most of our grants this year went to combat food insecurity in Englewood.

 

We focused on our youth with the first ever Rotary Club of Englewood Teen Peace Program which brought together students from all 5 Englewood middle schools, public and private. This program’s culmination ceremony will be held around Englewood’s first Peace Pole, donated by our Rotary Club! After a one-year hiatus due to COVID, we participated in The Dictionary Project and will soon be distributing dictionaries to all 3^rd graders in our city.

 

Our Mackay Park community wide clean-up in honor of Earth Day was a huge success and a highlight of the year!

 

Thanks to ZOOM, we brought in speakers from as far away as Germany with participants from all over the world. We had presenters from Portland and will soon welcome speakers from Iowa and Minnesota. We have made new friends and truly appreciated the wide reach of Rotary.

 

We will finish this Rotary year with the same energy and excitement with which it began, transitioning to hybrid and in-person meetings. We look forward to dedicating a commemorative bench in memory of our beloved member George Milne at the Englewood boat basin, and our upcoming celebrations culminating with the induction of our incoming President, Jacqueline Guttman, and the 2021/2022 Rotary Board members on June 29th.

 

I want to thank the Rotary Club for the opportunity to serve as your President this year. What a wonderfully productive and successful year it’s been, and I am proud of all we’ve accomplished together.