On Wednesday, our three 2013 scholarship winners were announced by Glenn and Carolyn Chamberlain at the Ephrata High School awards assembly.  The recipients were:  Jayme Hovland, Jordan Brzezny and Kristen McDonnell.  The winners have been invited to attend this Tuesdays meeting.  Best of luck to all three! 

What a great turnout Thursday night for our annual youth parade!  Great job to Bea White and all the other Rotarians who were there to help.

The annual Rotary Youth Parade will be Thursday, June 6th with this year's theme being "A Day at the Zoo!"  The parade starts at 7 pm and stages from the parking lot next to the Ephrata Senior Center on C St NW. 

On Saturday, the 2013 Little League season was kicked off here in Ephrata.  Among the numerous teams to take the field was our very own Rotary Club of Ephrata rookie league team. 

Our tenth court has been sponsored by Lamb Weston (ConAgra Foods) of Quincy! 

So to recap:  Chase Bank, Farmers Insurance (Cheryl Kono), State Farm (Cory Pickeral), Edward Jones, Anderson Hay & Grain, Nicoles Funeral Home, Barry Chrysler Jeep Dodge, Elliott's Tree Care, Sun Hills Dental (Dr. Brian Jacobsen) and Lamb Weston.   A great big THANK YOU to these businesses and individuals who stepped right up to help us make this tournament even better. 

 The planning has started for this year's Rim2Rim 3 on 3 basketball tournament.  Please be sure to mark July 20th off on your calendar to help. 

First up is finding 10 court sponsors.  For only $300 you or your business can become a two (2) year court sponsor.   A big "thank you" to Chase bank for being our first official court sponsor!  As time goes on we will need help with the coordination of personnel (court monitors, scorers, etc.) as well as registration/bracketing help.  Please let us know what area you might see yourself fitting into. 

Welcome to 2013!  After taking a couple of weeks off to enjoy the holidays we are back at it.  Hopefully everyone is recharged and refreshed and ready to take on new challenges and opportunities.   As a reminder, we are still collecting food for the Ephrata Food Bank's backpack program during the month of January.  We will also be finalizing Doug's incoming Board of Directors that will take office July 2013. 

The upcoming months will include the Easter Egg hunt (March 30), the Youth Parade (June 6th) and the Rim 2 Rim basketball tournament (July 20th).  Please mark these dates on your calendars and plan to help out! 

Last Thursday, I had the privilege of announcing to the students at Columbia Ridge Elementary School just how much money they had raised in their Read A Thon challenge.  About one month ago, our club was approached by Reading Specialist, Ronda Billingsley, as to whether we would sponsor a reading contest for the students with the money going to Hurricane Sandy victims.  A lofty goal of 2,000 A/R (Accelerated Reading) points was set.   AR points are earned when a student reads a book and takes a test on it.    Not only did the students meet their goal, they surpassed it by 151 points!   There were lots of cheers and high fives all around when they realized that $500 would be sent in their names to the Rotary Club of Staten Island. 

We are once again embarking on a food bank challenge!  After the Board meeting today (Thursday) it was decided to forgo the team challenge and just go with trying to out-do ourselves and bring in more pounds this year than we did last year!  So, this years challenge is to bring in 2000 lbs of food.  We will be focusing on everyday foods for the next month for the Soap Lake Food Bank, and in January will focus on foods that are high protein/ready to eat that can be used for the Ephrata Food Bank's weekend backpack food program in place for school-age kids. 

This will be on going thru January.  

This wonderful Foundation began in 1917 when the RI President Arch Klumph announced the acceptance of endowments for doing good in the world – and The Rotary Foundation was born! With the help of Rotarians like you, Rotary continues to do good by building peace, fighting disease, providing clean water, supporting mothers and children, promoting education and growing local economies.

Rotary clubs are open to people of all cultures and ethnicities and are not affiliated with any political or religious organizations.

Congratulations to our 2012 scholarship winners; Brandt Monson, Yelena Novik and Kendra DeHoog.  Brandt and Yelena are pictured with our current President, Kitty Thomas. 

I hope to see all of you on Tuesday, January 3rd. We have a great speaker.

It is John Poling from the Housing Authority. 

See you there!

Kitty  

This is it... the final day for the food drive.  Bring your extra cans and bags of non-perishable food items or your cash.  Let's show our  support for the local food banks!

Great news!  Earlier this week we received a $1,000 grant from the Walmart Foundation to support our annual backpack and school supply project.   This should help fund our project for another two years! 

One distribution day is completed - four more to go!  Thanks to Julian and Sylvia Agranoff, Martin Hooyer, Darryl Pheasant and Jennifer DeChenne for getting the dictionaries into the hands of Grant Elementary 3rd graders.  Next date looks to be September 29th at 2 pm at Columbia Ridge.  Please let Cindie Conklin know if you will be able to help at that time!

We would like several representative from each club to attend.  The registration fee is $65 for both days, $30 for Friday only, and $35 for Saturday only. Make reservations at the Penticton Lakeside Resort (800-663-9400).

 An online registration form will be out shortly, and credit cards can be used with that form.

GSE TEAM LEADERS:   Applications for Team Leader for the GSE visit to District 4600 Brazil are being accepted up to September 15, 2011. Trip Dates April 23, 2012 to May 20, 2012. District 4600 comprises the states of Rio de Janeiro and the state of Sao Paulo, but not the cities of Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo. It has 68 clubs in 39 cities with 1,301 members.

GSE is a cultural and vocational Group Study Exchange, which is designed to foster international understanding and goodwill. All travel, accommodation and meal costs are paid by Rotary. A team of five, led by a Rotarian as Team Leader, will tour Brazil, stay with Rotarians, share knowledge with professional counterparts and make presentations about our countries and culture to Rotary clubs and other groups.

Ideal Team Leader candidates will have strong leadership qualities, high energy, excellent team communication and presentation skills and the knowledge to be a good representative of Rotary. While not necessary, the ability to speak Portuguese or willingness to take language training is an asset.

Interviews for Team Leader take place on October 1st at a location to be announced. Application forms are on the District website under Foundation - GSE. Please email completed applications to Kathy Butler kabutler@telus.net or fax to 250-862-5627

Thanks to all those kids who participated in our Youth Parade Thursday night!  What a great way to kick off summer vacation!  

Congratulations to our 2011 scholarship winners, Emily Wallace, Stephanie Lutz and Mattias Dilling.  What a great group of young people to represent us!

Be ready to run wild on June 9th as we once again host our annual Youth Parade!  Lineup and judging takes place at the parking lot on the corner of 2nd Ave NW & C St NW.   Judging begins at 6:15 and runs to 6:45,  with the parade starting a 7 pm.  A registration form can be found under the downloads section of this homepage!   

On Saturday, April 23rd, our very own Jason Clark, was honored with throwing out the first pitch to start the 2011 Cal Ripken baseball season.  Over 470 kids are participating this year from tee-ball to girls fastpitch. Jason is the current President of the league and will be  stepping down after 6 years of overseeing this great program. 

Becoming a member of Rotary, Responsibilities of Rotary Members, Attendance requirements of Rotary Members...

WOW... we collected all the food and money for Decembers contribution to the Ephrata Food Bank!!! The last week shored up the winners of the contest for December!  Here's the last weeks update:

Team 1: Food Stalkers Batallion - 1070 lbs   Team 2: Operation Get Food - 3158 lbs

YES... you read those #'s right... Team 2 had $1625 cash donated... which added to their lbs by 2452...addding actual food lbs of 706... way to go!!  Team 1 had a total of $548 cash and 233 lbs of food! 

Another year is "in the books" with over 200 dictionaries distributed to third graders at Columbia Ridge, Grant, St. Rose, New Life Christian, Wilson Creek and Soap Lake Elementary.   Thanks to all who volunteered their time to make a difference! 

It is that time of year again and the weather is changing! The Community Coat Closet is open Tuesdays from 3:30 - 5:30 and Thursdays from 5:00 - 6:00 pm.  Donations may be dropped off during those hours.  

We now have a Facebook page - if you are not already a fan look us up!  Once you become a fan please suggest us to any other individuals you think might be interested in learning about what we have going on.

We are currently looking for nominees for our "Yard of the Month" program.  If you have any nominations contract Glenn and Carolyn Chamberlain at gchamberlain@homenetnw.net . 

Dear Fellow Rotarians: We are pleased to report a very successful delivery year for the Guatemala Literacy Project (GLP).  Thanks to your generosity, we were able to bring the gift of textbooks and computer labs to almost 1,800 Guatemalan schoolchildren.  Education is the key to ending the generational cycles of poverty that currently plague this region.  This year's Guatemala Literacy Project would not have been possible without your generosity and that of the other 57 clubs and 15 districts that contributed to the program. 

We invite you to join again in supporting the GLP in Rotary year 2010-11, when we will be bringing first-ever textbooks and computers to schools in Chimaltenango, Sacatepequez, Solola, Quetzaltenango, Totonicapan, El Quiche and Huehuetenango.  These are severely impoverished areas in the Guatemalan Highlands with some of the worst education and literacy statistics in the Western Hemisphere. 

Yours in Rotary,

Glenn Chamberlain and Dick Anderson, GLP National Co-Coordinators 09-10

On October 16, 2009 over 250 dictionaries were distributed to third graders in the Ephrata, Soap Lake and Wilson Creek school districts.  Thanks to everyone who helped hand these out:  Rian, Jennifer, Carolyn, Cindie, Glenn, John, Julian, Sylvia, Darryl, Gary, Bob, Derek, Carl, Lorrie, Becky and Kitty!  Once again it was great to get out into the community and see the excitement of the students.