Stories

See our Calendar for meeting log in information.

Seven Girdwood Rotarians & friends of Rotary served dinner at the Brother Francis Shelter in downtown Anchorage on Thursday, Nov. 13. 

Frans and Eph Roberts are advocating for funding to revamp the Girdwood Tennis Courts. Join the "Friends of Girdwood Tennis Courts" group on Facebook to see all the details.

Kyle, Girdwood Liaison to Anchorage Parks and Rec. gave a comprehensive update regarding all the exciting projects coming up this summer.

Ethan Tyler, Major Gifts Officer, of The Alaska Community Foundation, gave our club a great overview of his organization and all the good they do around Alaska. Learn more at http://alaskacf.org/.

 

The Girdwood Rotary and many other volunteers brought the Annual Girdwood Health Fair back to the community again this year.  There were several booths offered where individuals and families could get a variety of testing and exams done to check their overall health. Sceening ranged from eye exams, blood testing, height, weight, BMI, prostrate exams, mammograms and flu shots. The waiting area was packed by 8:45am as people anxiously awaited doors opening at 9am.

Many thanks to both Rebecca Reichlin & Sue Liebner who Quilted for Polio Eradication. Their donations went to the 2013 Zone Institute held September 18-22 to be auctioned off to benefit the polio eradication program. The beautiful quilt diplayed in this photo was crafted by Rebecca Reichlin.

Members of the Girdwood Rotary (and new school principal, Cindy Hemry) had a great time serving ice cream to the upstanding youth of Girdwood at the Girdwood School Open House. It was a wonderful opportunity to visit with the teachers and staff and learn about all the plans for an exciting school year. These kids are the future of our community and we appreciate everything the professionals at Girdwood School are doing to ensure many bright tomorrows in our charming hamlet.

District 5010's Sue Foley visited with the club last week and gave inspiring words in line with this year's theme: Engage Rotary, Change Lives.

Photo courtesy of Duane Napartaq
    Girdwood Rotary Club President Frans Weits presented James Milne with Rotary's 8th Grade Student of the Year Award in recognition of his Academic Achievement and Strong Efforts, his involvement in Extra-curricular Activities, Outside School Activities and for his Community Service to Girdwood School. 
    President Frans challenged ...

    We were honored by a visit to our club meeting from “our new favorite guest”, Snickers.  Snickers is a nine year old porcupine that resides at Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center in Portage. Snickers is of the Rodent family and very curious about almost anything.  His love of public appearances is, ...

    CeCe Mendonsa reported on the recent District Conference in Ketchikan and the status of Rotary's efforts to eradicate polio around the world. Progrees is good and early next year, assuming no new cases surface, India will be declared POLIO FREE!!

BULLETIN:  Playground Maintenance and Cleanup for Saturday, May 18^th, was canceled due to Girdwood's weather forecast of snow and rain from Thursday until Saturday evening / Sunday morning.  Cleanup has been rescheduled for June 2^nd - the weather is forecast to be much improved by then. Please plan on joining us for this fun community activity.
For more information on this community service event:

   Girdwood Rotary Club Secretary CeCe Mendonsa, President Nominee Erin Eker and member Jody Liddicoat (President 2007-08) represented Girdwood Rotary at the District 5010 Conference in Ketchikan this past week.  CeCe, Erin and Jody reported  

Girdwood Rotary is honored to have been part of the recent fundraising effort for Bean's Cafe. The Anchorage Daily News published the following story on April 3rd, 2013.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — A nonprofit group has donated money for a major piece of equipment for Bean's Cafe soup kitchen in Anchorage.

Bean's development director Ken Miller says the $17,000 convection steam oven will be formally dedicated Wednesday.

The Anchorage Rotary Hillside Club spearheaded the effort by local rotary clubs to donate the funds for the equipment in memory of Bean's late executive director Jim Crockett, who died suddenly of pneumonia n November.

At the time of his death, Crockett also was president of the Gateway Rotary Club in east Anchorage.

Bean's began feeding needy Anchorage residents in 1979 and now serves more than 800 meals a day.

See the article online at http://www.adn.com/2013/04/03/2849953/group-donates-funds-for-beans.html.

John Michael O'Leary, aka "Gator", hosted our Rotary Club meeting on March 14th at his establishment, The Grind (236 Hightower Rd). Gator prepared a buffet that, according to all that partook, was scrumptious.

Following the buffet, Gator treated us to a tour of his coffee bean cooking and blending facility located at the front of his store. 

We are happy to say that Girdwood Rotary Members are now educated on the “ins and outs” of the proper selection, blending and baking of beans in the coffee making process.

    We are in the process of changing to "ClubRunner" as the engine behind our club's web site. Accordingly, we are all excited to see how ClubRunner will revolutionize the way we manage our day to day club activities, as well as communicate more effectively. If you have any comments please give us a call. 

    Please take the time to "explore" the web site and send any or all of us comments.  You can send an email by clicking on our names (Ron, Sue or Frans) on the left side of the home page and then follow the directions. 

    Meanwhile, please check our website for the latest events featuring lots of ice cream paid for by Sue. Also join us for meetings every Thursday for delicious dinners! 

On Thursday evening, January 10^th, we were joined by three students (two from the eighth grade and one from the seventh grade) from Girdwood Middle School.  These future leaders of tomorrow were accompanied by eighth grade history teacher Mr. Scott Hickox.  Their presentation was superb and we are very sorry that those of you not in attendance missed this opportunity to hear how the men and women of the future are going to speak.  As an aside, Gierdwood Rotary Club, on February 28th, will present a check for $1,000 to the students to go toward their Washington D.C. trip.

We could never learn to be brave and patient, if there were only joy in the world.

An optimist is the human personification of spring.  And Sue said HaHaHaHa

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As time permits, the following will be linked to pages describing the respective event. Click on "More..." immediately below to view a list of the projecs Girdwood Rotary Club's projects.

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