Where: Zing Denver, 3545 Larimer St. Denver, CO 80205.
Cost: $15 per person (cash or credit via Square).
Food/Drink: This is a BYOB event - bring your own beer or whatever drink you like! Denver's own Crock Spot Food Truck will be onsite to serve up delicious food.

This is our second annual ping pong fundraiser to help eradicate polio - donations will go to Rotary International's PolioPlus program. Learn more at www.endpolio.org.

Click HERE to RSVP on Facebook. For those reading to the end - print out this page and bring with you for a free beer from the Rotary Club. Cheers!

One of the great organizations headquartered in our service area is Volunteers of America - Colorado, who also runs a daytime shelter at 28th & Lawrence. We have donated clothes, toys and socks to The Mission in the past. This year, we mobilized our resources to participate in the VOA's Adopt-a-Family program. VOA matched the Rotary Club of Five Points with a family of eight, including six children between the ages of 2 and 12. Club members chose a family member and purchased items from their wish lists, and the gifts were dropped off with VOA staff on Friday, December 14th, complete with gift wrap. We are very excited to make Christmas special for this family and to support the hard work of VOA. Happy holidays to all!

We're collecting wish list items for the Volunteers of America Mission at 2877 Lawrence St. in Denver. The Mission, which is Volunteers of America's oldest program in Colorado, is a daytime shelter which provides clients with food, clothing, job training, employment assistance, spiritual guidance, referrals and a safe place for relaxation and refreshment. Items on their wish list include:

• bus tokens
• hygiene kits
• coats
• men's underwear & socks
• bibles
• bicycles
• phone cards
• pantry boxes of food
• gently used toys

If you can donate, please contact Suzie Ahlers, VP of Service, at suzie dot ahlers at gmail dot com, or 720.891.0843 to arrange a pick-up/drop-off. Thanks for your generosity!

The Rotary Club of Five Points and one of our community partners, EarthLinks, invite you to a happy hour event on October 25, 2011 from 6:00 – 8:00pm at Casselman’s Bar and Venue. Casselman’s is located at 2620 Walnut Street in downtown Denver and free street parking is available. There is no cover charge for the event.

This gathering is an expansion of the monthly Rotary Club of Five Points happy hour and we are excited to invite the larger Five Points community, as well as the supporters of our respective organizations. This is a chance to learn more about the Rotary Club of Five Points and EarthLinks, as well as meet other Five Points business and community members. Proceeds from sales of the bar’s drink specials (including the signature Five Pointer drink) will benefit both organizations. Additionally, EarthLinks will have their products for sale.

For those who enjoy 80s rock music, the band Anvil will start playing at 8:00 pm.

We hope to see you there! If you have any questions, please contact Suzie Ahlers at suzie.ahlers@gmail.com.

With the summer came a new Rotary year and a new President for our Club, Emily Shamsid-Deen. Emily's work with our Club leading up to the beginning of her term demonstrated that the Club was ready to jump in and start supporting our service area through hands-on projects. We began in July with our monthly project, Shots for Tots and Teens, at the Colorado Miners Community Center led by our Treasurer, Therese Rasmussen. Two weeks later, our Board Member at Large, Jamie Villareal, organized a school supply drive on August 9th for teachers at Cole Arts & Science Academy and Gilpin Montessori, two Denver Public Schools in our service area where teachers often have to go out of pocket to provide extra supplies to students in need (see photos here). Then, on August 13th, our Co-VP of Service, Sue Golding, encouraged Club members and their families to rise extra early on a Saturday morning and paint the house of a local resident in need through Brothers Redevelopment, who has used its Home Maintenance and Repair Program to repair and refurbish the homes of tens of thousands of disabled and elderly homeowners throughout the Denver metro area (see photos here).

Besides all the great work we accomplished, we also welcomed some wonderful speakers to our new meeting space at Fluid Coffee Bar. On July 19th, a representative of the Mayors Office of Sustainablity outlined the Greenprint project, which organizes neighbors to canvas their neighborhoods and educate their neighbors energy-saving programs such as free recycling and junk mail reduction. August 16th brought a very special guest, past Rotary International Vice President Tom Thorfinnson. Thom shared his vision for the future of Rotary and the importance of focusing on the core values that make Rotary such a vital organization. At the end of August, we welcomed District Governor Jim Halderman and his wife, Peggy on their rounds to all the District Clubs. We shared our successes, challenges, and plans for the year, and Jim shared his thoughts on Rotary's theme for this year, "ReachWithin to Embrace Humanity."

Besides all the hard work, we also had fun! Our esteemed Rotarian Dave Hill organized a trip to see the Rockies on August 7th, complete with a birthday cake for one of our future Rotarians on his 3rd birthday. We will be enjoying an end-of-summer BBQ at Sue's house on Sept. 24th. As fall approaches, we are looking forward to more great service projects and fun with our fellow Rotarians and their families!

On May 21st, the inaugural 5K in Five Points will occur in conjunction with the annual Five Points Jazz festival. This exciting new race is founded and presented by the Rotary Club of Five Points Cultural District and YouthBiz, an organization in Five Points with the mission to advance the social and economic empowerment of youth through a focus on business, academics, and leadership. The 5K, set for 12:00pm, will begin at historic Mestizo-Curtis Park and end at the Jazz festival where participants can celebrate the music, culture and the history of Five Points. Entry fees are $30 for 18+ and $15 for youth ages 6-17 until May 14th; the fee for 18+ will increase to $35 after May 14th. Please join us on May 21st  and get ready for some great jazz music after the race!

After the devastating earthquake in Japan, a group of expats, students, and concerned volunteers living in Colorado created Cocororado, a charity combining “Cocoro” (which means heart in Japanese) with Colorado that benefits tsunami and earthquake survivors in the Tohoku region of Japan. Cocororado has been raising money through the sale of t-shirts, stickers, buttons, and other paraphernalia designed and produced by Design Sesame, a design company from Boulder. After their first yard sale which raised over $1,700 for the Red Cross, one of the Club members approached her Cocororado coworker and asked if their charity would be interested in donating toward a ShelterBox for the Japanese survivors.

Within 3 weeks the Club and Cocorado had pooled together their dollars to purchase a ShelterBox. This is truly a gift from the heart and we look forward to tracking our Box as it goes to a family in need. The Rotary Club of Five Points Cultural District salutes Cocororado for their amazing work! If you would like to support Cocororado, visit their facebook page to find out about more events or visit their online shop to purchase merchandise. All profits go toward disaster relief in Japan.

Every Spring, people from around the state come together to deliver 9Health Fair's free and low-cost health awareness and educational screenings. Because of this volunteerism, over 100,000 lives are impacted annually. The mission of the 9Health Fair is to promote health awareness and to encourage individuals to assume responsibility for their health. The Fair not only provides on opportunity for each of us to take charge of our health, but offers numerous options for volunteering. There are a number of Fairs occuring in the next few weeks, which you can view and register for here. If you would like to volunteer, please visit the Volunteer page here.

Our great local coffee shop, Coffee at the Point, is having a fundraiser for Gilpin Montessori, a DPS elementary school located on 29th & California. 10% of everything you purchase through Saturday, March 19th will go toward assisting the Gilpin students in one of their 'green initiatives' – worm composting!

On March 1st, our Club enjoyed a presentation from an amazing local organization, EarthLinks, who has been serving at-risk people in our neighborhood for 15 years. EarthLinks gives homeless and low-income persons the opportunity to earn a small stipend for creative work that connects them to nature and the creative process. Their building houses a garden where program participants grow and care for flowers, vegetables and herbs. These items are used to make a variety of products including soap, cards, bookmarks, vases and more. Other programs at EarthLinks include an apprenticeship program in floral design, and day trips into nature. Volunteers at EarthLinks (including our fellow Five Points Rotarian Sue Golding) not only provide support to persons in the programs, but work directly alongside them to foster a true sense of community and shared experiences.

Please visit the EarthLinks How You Can Help page for more information on how you can support this vital organization.