Westbrook Community Night at the Ball Park – Benefit Recovery Liaison, a program of the Westbrook Police Dept. Wednesday, August 15, 2018. The Portland Sea Dogs take on the Trenton Thunder, AA Affiliate of the New York Yankees at 7:00 PM. Ticket $9 Westbrook Night at Sea Dogs
District Night at the Sea Dogs – Sunday August 19 at 1:00 PM. Gates open at 11:30 AM - $27.50. To purchase tickets: https://groupmatics.events/event/Rotarydistrict7780 Tickets purchased through this link are for the Picnic Area in Right Field. Includes access to the picnic area with buffet that runs from 11:30am until 2:00 PM - hamburgers, hot dogs, BBQ pulled chicken, baked beans, coleslaw, Coca-Cola products & Sea Dog Biscuits. Cash bar. Contact bob.wester@icloud.com with questions.
Community Food Drive - Co-Sponsored by Westbrook-Gorham Rotary, Westbrook Kiwanis, and Saco Biddeford Savings Bank. Hannaford Drive at Saco Biddeford Savings parking lot- Saturday August 18, 10AM-2PM. Contact Sarah Hutchins to volunteer. To benefit Westbrook Food Pantry and to help re-stock shelves at Westbrook High School Food pantry as school re-opens.
Rotary Night Out - Tuesday August 28 5:30PM- In place of our usual lunch meeting, join us for an evening at Westbrook Common (also known as Blue Note Park) in the heart of Downtown Westbrook. Pick up food & drink from one of the local businesses like Quill Books & Beverage or Westbrook House of Pizza. Friends, spouses and perspective members welcome. Henry Saunders will be giving a short talk on Westbrook Urban Renewal.
Westbrook-Gorham Rotary Annual Golf Tournament - Tuesday September 18, 2018 at Gorham Country Club.
The Locker Project - Fresh food and baked goods distribution in Westbrook. Two or three volunteer needed for each date during the summer at either Westbrook Community Center (WCC) or My Place Teen Center (MPTC). WCCarrival 4PM on date: Aug 8. MPTC arrival 3PM on date: Aug 22. Help lay out food on tables and interact with the kids to encourage them to take items. You will be a welcoming presence, making sure people know they are invited to take food. Everyone is invited to bring food home with them. If you can help on any of these dates, please contact Christine Johnson. For more information, or to donate, visit their website: mainelockerproject.org
Donate Blood – American Red Cross has put out a call for blood due to low supply. Please consider donating during a drive near you or at the Blood Donation Center on Forest Ave, Portland. Upcoming locations in our area: Gorham High School, Morrill Ave, Gorham, Monday 8/13 1-6PM; Cinemagic, County Rd, Westbrook, Friday-Saturday 8/17-8/18, 10AM-5PM. For more locations: https://www.redcross.org/give-blood
Annual Golf Classic - It's that time of year again! Follow this link to our webpage to download and share the brochure: 24th Annual Golf Classic Information Please work your local contacts for various sponsorship levels: $100 Hole, $450 Gold, $600 Platinum. Sign up a team for $360 or donate prizes and gift cards for our raffle. This is one of only two big fundraisers, so we need help from all members to make this a success.
Can Tabs for Ronald MacDonald House – Ongoing - Thank you for continuing to collect can tabs.Please bring your collection to any meeting this spring/summer. Pat and Cliff Plummer and looking forward to accepting them for Ronald McDonald House.
CLYNK for Literacy - Ongoing - Don't forget to keep filling those bags to help fund the children's books we ask our speakers to sign for the Baxter and Walker Libraries. Extra bags are always available at our meetings. If you have been working on filling a bag for a very long time (6 months or more), please consider returning it and starting a new one. Thank you for your ongoing support of this fundraiser!
Donate to our Club's Charity through Amazon Smile – Ongoing - If you order items from Amazon.com, even if not very often, you can help Westbrook Gorham Rotary Club Charities. Go to http://smile.amazon.com/. Search for our Charity and select it. You may need to login to your Amazon account before being able to finalize your selection. Then, when you shop Amazon.com (always starting from http://smile.amazon.com/) a portion of every purchase will be donated to our charity.
For those interested in helping with the planning of our Annual Golf Classic, the first committee will meet immediately following our lunch meeting on July 31.
We ask all members to please work your local contacts to find sponsors at these levels: $100 Hole, $450 Gold, $600 Platinum. We also encourage members to sign up a team for $360 or donate prizes and gift cards for our raffle. This is one of only two big fundraisers our club holds, so we need help from all members to make this a success.
Rotary International and the Rotary Club of Westbrook-Gorham are interested in documenting the hours Rotarians devote to volunteer activities. It helps us tell the story of Rotary doing good in the world.
Westbrook-Gorham Rotary will be compiling information on all projects, donations, and fundraisers. This includes name of the project, date(s) of the project, volunteer hours, funds raised or donated, value of goods collected or donated, etc. This information will be entered into Rotary Club Central by the Club Secretary or other designated club representative.
The information we enter is aggregated with entries from all other Clubs in District 7780 so we can better understand and articulate the value Rotary brings to our communities. It is also aggregated with the entries from all other clubs around the world.
For information on how to report hours, please go to our website at this link: https://www.westbrookgorhamrotary.org/page/volunteer-hour-and-donation-tracking
On July 24, members of Gorham High School Interact and several students who attended RYLA 2018 were our guests. WG Rotary Member Ethan Johnson introduced the students and their adviser Neile Nelson. GHS Interact is currently an organization of over 100 students representing a mix of students across grade levels and other interests – athletes, scholars, actors, etc. They have reached this membership level in just two years thanks to the work of Aaron Farr, Immediate Past President of two years, other officers and directors of Interact, and Mrs. Nelson. Aaron was inspired to form the club during his attendance at RYLA in 2016.
Immediate Past President Aaron Farr
Aaron provided a recap of the past year when membership grew from about 43 at end of school year 2017 to about 110 at end of school year 2018. During the 2017-2018 school year the club held or participated in 13 events, 5 more than in the previous year. They also contributed 885 volunteer hours to the community. Their largest event was the American Cancer Society Relay for Life held at the GHS track during which 55 members participated and raised nearly $4000. As a club fundraiser, they sold tee-shirts with the slogan “Just a Kid from Gorham”. Half of the proceeds from this fundraiser were donated to the newly started backpack hunger prevention program at the elementary school level. The other half was retained in their treasury to support club activities.
The GHS Interact Club volunteered multiple Saturdays for Habitat for Humanity at their Scarborough site. Four officers attended Rotary UN Day in New York City and were impressed by what they saw there. Their big donation drive this year collected school supplies for children in Guatemala - the students decorated and distributed collection boxes around Gorham schools and in local community locations. They also did yard clean-up for elderly residents and wrote holiday letters to Maine Medical Center patients.
An interesting event held this year was their participation in the Happy Healthy Gorham Initiative. Over a hundred students from all high school levels participated in a yoga session held on the GHS athletic field. This event was covered by local TV and newspaper and a film produced by the school can be seen at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYeiCbwImCI .
RYLA Participants Abby O'Brien, Ryan Reno,
Luke LaMontagne and Ryan Farr
Four students who attended RYLA also spoke. They thanked our club for sponsoring students to this “life changing” program. They spoke of meeting like-minded students from other schools and being encouraged to move outside their comfort zones as they participated in the group activities.
2018-2019 Officers
Sean Pocock, Grace Terry, Sarah Walker
Next, the 2018 officers were introduced. President Sarah Walker, Secretary Grace Terry, and 12th Grade Director Sean Pocock were present. VP Sarah Stevens, Treasurer Carson Battaglia, and 10th an 11th Grade Directors Adele Nadeau and Jillian Nichols were not able to join us.
Finally, Neile said a few words. She thanked WG Rotary for sponsoring the GHS Interact Club. She explained that while she is the adviser - “the adult” - it is the students who plan and run the club and all of their projects. The club is about developing leadership skills and the students have done just that. Finally, she singled out Aaron as someone who “gets stuff done”. She mentioned that he will be attending Yale in the fall and expects him to contribute there as he has done at GHS.
Before leaving, the students all signed a children's book for the Baxter Library.
L-R: Luke LaMontagne, Abby O'Brien, Ryan Farr, Neile Nelson,
Ryan Reno, Aaron Farr, Sean Pocock,Sarah Walker, Grace Terry
If you have an idea for a speaker or program, please contact Christine Johnson at cejinmaine@gmail.com. We are also interested in ideas for periodic evening meetings, service projects in lieu of meetings, or in-meeting service projects
We are now scheduling programs for August and September.
Here is the list of upcoming speakers and programs:
Rotary is about fellowship, as well as service to our community. Even if you must miss a meeting, you can remain engaged by attending Rotary-sponsored events of our club or other clubs like fundraisers, by selling Christmas Trees, by volunteering at our Golf Tournament or our Road Race, or by attending District events or training. Just let our Secretary Mike Foley know when you have participated in any of these activities at mfoley@me.com
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